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November 30, 2004
A Supreme Day for Stuff
What the U.S. Supreme Court did -- and didn't do -- this week is catching the attention of bloggers.
What it didn't do is take up the case of the Massachusetts law that allows gay marraige. But it did listen to lawyers debate the lingering issue of the medical use of marijuana, which voters in 11 states have approved by ballot initiatives. California's is being scrutinized by the current sitting court.
Speaking of medical interventions, one of Monday's key phrases involves the South Korean woman who is now able to walk thanks to stem-cell treatment.
Topping today's list of bursty people is someone with a rags-to-riches story: namely, Carlos Gutierrez, a Cuban-born executive who rose from Kellogg cereal truck driver to Chief Operating Officer. He's been nominated by President Bush to become the Secretary of Commerce.
And while we're dropping names, catch these: Hazel and Phinnaeus. Those are the names that actress Julia Roberts and husband Danny Moder gave to their newborn twins. Asks one blogger: "What is it with celebrities and weird names?" Indeed. Whaddya bet Phinnaeus asks to change his name to Ed or Bo when he gets to kindergarten and has to start printing that Latin-spelling monstrosity on every paper?
Newshound alert: Wikipedia has launched Wikinews, a free content news source. In case you don't get enough from the Internet, 24-hour cable, email, text messaging, nightly news, radio, RSS feeds, cell phone alerts and your mother.
And look who's coming to the defense of Dan Rather. None other than Bill O'Reilly himself. That calls for an Arsenio Hall "hmmmmm....." moment.
TREND GRAPH OF THE DAY: Military talk comes in all kinds, but the most personal revolves around military recruitment, deployment and retirement. Guess which is is talked about more?
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 04:15 PM | Permalink
November 29, 2004
The Post-Holiday Holidays
It certainly doesn't take long for folks to switch from one holiday mode to another, eh? Last week's frequent references to Thanksgiving have been quickly upstaged in BlogPulse by references to Christmas and all the shopping/decorating activities associated with it.
Among Sunday's key phrases, in fact, three of them are directly tied to the Thanksgiving weekend tradition of gearing up for Christmas, including putting up holiday trees, stringing holiday lights and hanging those decorations.
There were those who started their holiday shopping and those who advocated a boycott of the post-Thanksgiving economic excess, including the AdBusters Buy Nothing Day campaign and a similar campaign in the UK.
Perhaps one of the more bizarre entries in BlogPulse over the Thanksgiving weekend was the tale of Rachelle Waterman, an Alaska teen-ager who solicited the help of her friends to murder her mother. And who then wrote about it in her LiveJournal Diary. Of course, it might possibly be topped by the weekend tale of Kevin Winston, the Newark NJ father who called the cops when his daughter came home drunk and ended up being ratted out by the daughter, who told police about the semi-automatic weapons and cocaine he had stashed in the house.
For the graphically oriented, one of the weekend's top links was this unusual Zoom Quilt. Click and drag your mouse to maneuver through the....well, whatever it is. It's certainly unusual.
Have you ever wondered if there's justice in the small things that happen in life? There is, as this entry from Craig's List confirms. It's Sunday's 28th-ranked link.
TREND GRAPH OF THE DAY: The news from Iraq fluctuates between military assaults and election plans, but the locales change frequently, as the graph that plots Iraq's top cities clearly shows.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 12:23 PM | Permalink
November 24, 2004
The Sharks (Economic, Political, Fish-Variety) are Circling....
Happy Thanksgiving to all BlogPulse visitors. May your turkey be plump, may your gravy be lump-less and may the relatives who voted/leaned differently from you in the Presidential election be, shall we say, tactful?
First, to the news of the swim-in-the-ocean sharks, or the Jaws vs. Flipper match-up. Seems a great white shark was drooling over a group of New Zealand swimmers back in October. Out of nowhere, a group of dolphins surrounded the swimmers and protected them for up to 40 minutes, until they could swim to shore. The judges award points to Flipper.
On the economic front, it's more of a Bulls vs. Bears vs. Doomsayers confrontation, judging by Wednesday's top link. The Boston Herald is reporting that Morgan Stanley chief economist Stephen Roach, in a private meeting to which the press was not invited, is predicting an economic "Armageddon" soon because of America's tailspinning dollar, growing trade deficit and increasing household debt. And maybe pending bankruptcies. Happy 2005?
Numerous bloggers are taking credit for the downfall of CBS veteran newsman Dan Rather, who announced this week he's giving up the anchor's chair at the network but will remain an investigative reporter.
For today's grins, Colin Purrington at Swarthmore College has taken on the Christian/religious community and its continued assault on the nation's science textbooks and curricula. This page of textbook disclaimer stickers offers a variety of alternative stickers for parents/idealogues interested in protecting their children from disinformation of any kind. (Only the first sticker in the bunch is an actual sticker now pasted on actual textbooks). Which explains this as well.
Remember when U.S. troops were rolling into Bagdhad during the early days of the U.S. invasion of Iraq? How every street, every building, every public park had huge photos, images, paintings and statues of Saddam Hussein? Does this Florida billboard strike anyone as oddly reminiscent? Even a little bit creepy? It's sponsored by Clear Channel Communications, a worldwide organization that owns 700,000 billboards and 1,356 radio stations. (Do you suppose any of them broadcast Air America?)
Other quick finds: voters who still aren't happy with November's election results are plotting a Turn Your Back on Bush happening during inauguration festivities in D.C. And that grilled cheese sandwich with the supposed image of the Virgin Mary? That solitary sandwich sold for $28,000 on eBay. Honest. One sandwich. $28,000. (Hey! Maybe a bunch of government-sponsored sandwiches on eBay could raise enough money to stave off economic Armagedon?)
TREND GRAPH OF THE DAY: The long Thanksgiving weekend is always a good time for avoiding the shopping crowds by catching a flick or two. So which action director gets more buzz in the blogosphere: George, Steven or Quentin?
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 10:34 AM | Permalink
November 23, 2004
No Wonder The Rest of the World Thinks We're a Little Bit Nuts
It's not as if America has to work really hard ruining its image around the world, eh?
Not with hunters shooting each other with assault rifles in Wisconsin, NBA players beating the stuffing out of fans, a sickening new video game that hits the market 41 years (almost to the day) after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and a recent Gallup poll that should make science teachers everywhere shudder to the bones. (Maybe those folks at the Sorry Everybody blog should start adding topical sections!)
Pardon my pontificating, but today's headlines and blog references are proof positive that this nation needs a ban on assault weapons. Because when hunters start using guns for crime, then all that talk about guns-for-sport becomes hollow talk, doesn't it? Among today's burstiest people are Chai Vang, the St. Paul hunter arrested for killing six fellow hunters (and wounding two others) with an assault-style rifle on Monday in northern Wisconsin. Also on the list are sheriff deputies Tim Zeigle and Jake Hodgkinson, who investigated the senseless shooting.
If that's not enough gore, how about a video game in which you get to be Lee Harvey Oswald aiming a rifle from a book depository window in Dallas? It's true. One of today's top links describes JFK Reloaded, a new video game from a Scottish company that insists there's nothing twisted about it. Players win or lose points depending on how well their tactics match the findings of the Warren Commission, which investigated the Nov. 22, 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Not depressed enough yet? From the pollsters at Gallup comes this new survey: almost half of Americans believe that God created humans about 10,000 years ago, while only one-third believe Darwin's theory of evolution. (I've gotta ask: is this a result of the so-called educational "gains" from No Child Left Behind? And should we add "ignorance" to the BlogPulse daily graph that charts the seven deadly sins?)
If you think sitting at a computer all day is the world's boring job, give yourself a healthy dose of perspective by checking out Popular Science's sequel to the "Worst Jobs in Science." At least you don't have ticks or worms sharing your cubicle (or DO you?)
And from what Jon Stewart calls "Mess-O-Potamia," or the war in Iraq, come two interesting links. The first is a blog by Kevin Sites, the TV newsman who was on the scene when a U.S. Marine shot and killed and already-injured Iraqi soldier in a Fallujah mosque. He adds the context and background that the nightly news blips don't have time for. The second link looks at war from the Marines' perspective in an ABC piece about Iraqi soldiers who "play dead" before firing on U.S. soliders.
And in order not to totally bum out every BlogPulse aficionado today with bum-out news, let's shift paradigms right now. Check out this totally enjoyable ditty titled "P.S. I'll find my frog." Click on each image (73 total) as it appears on your computer screen, and you'll go on an unforgettable frog-hunting pilgrimage (don't miss image No. 62). Whoever created this site...thanks! We needed that.
TREND GRAPH OF THE DAY:Who's all the rage among aging male rock/pop stars?
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 09:56 AM | Permalink
November 22, 2004
The Full Moon Phenomenon: NBA Brawls, Vodka Experiments, Tax Return Snoops
There's an old wives' tale that people act a bit more bizarrely during the a full moon. Maybe folks are just jumping the gun a bit this week (the full moon's not due to emerge until Friday).
How else can one explain the all-out gang-like-war/street fight that erupted at the end of the Pacers-Pistons game over the weekend, or a sneak-through measure in the just-passed Congressional spending bill that allows Congressional committee chairpersons to look at anyone's tax return, whenever they want?
First, to the basketball game that gave professional sports perhaps it's biggest black eye ever (which is getting increasingly hard to do, isn't it?). The Indiana Pacers' Ron Artest rose to the top of BlogPulse's key people list over the weekend because of the fight in which players and fans duked it out (video links) in the stands and on the court. Likewise, five of Saturday's key phrases deal with the game and its aftermath. Among the weekend's finds is an ESPN description of the game.
In the land of politics, where the Congress last week raised the debt ceiling by $800 billion (yes, billion with a "B") and passed the new government spending bill, several bloggers are upset. Joshua Micah Marshall's Talking Points Memo (No. 2 among Sunday's top links) blasts the lawmakers for a clause that allows the chairs of the House or Senate appropriations committees or their agents to look at anyone's tax returns -- no restrictions. (Since publicity hit, officials have pledged to remove/amend it).
The Daily Kos blog points out that the spending bill also includes snuck-in language intended to further restrict women's access to health-care and reproductive services, including abortion and family planning. Do you feel safer, more secure now?
If not, how about a shot of vodka? One of the weekend's most intriguing finds is the "Oh My God It Burns!" blog. Which is kind of a like a science-fair project in blog form. The theory: a Brita water filter can turn a rot-gut brand of vodka into a pretty good one by leaching out the impurities. Follow along, with step-by-step photos and commentary....
And for Democrats who've been licking their wounds and wondering when to re-emerge from the shadows, Sen. John Kerry did it over the weekend with his "Protect Every Child" proposal, to be introduced in early January when the new Congress kicks into high gear. Instead of seeking a fellow senator to co-sponsor legilsation to provide every U.S. child with health insurance, Kerry is asking for citizen petitioners to get on board.
In teen-age land, LiveJournal bloggers are celebrating Casey Donovan's win as the new Australian idol.
TREND GRAPH OF THE DAY: With the food-laden, weight-gaining holidays approaching, who's carrying on about what: sugar, fat or salt?
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 10:51 AM | Permalink
November 19, 2004
Live From...Fallujah, Little Rock, Israel and Google
One of the cool things about BlogPulse is that it serves as a very quick summary of what's happening in the world, like a visitor who opens a door on the unexpected and says, "Come on in....."
Todays' BlogPulse takes us to:
The opening of the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Center, which garnered former President Clinton a No. 5 rank among key people. In addition, several references to the rain-soaked opening of his Little Rock library showed up among key phrases.
Thursday's 4th-rated link is the troubling but necessary Fallujah in Pictures blog, which graphically and very personally -- frame by frame -- exposes the hell of war for citizens, soldiers, cities and the simple concept of human decency. Yet, for every criticism of the horrors of war, there's something like this, a first-person account from soldiers on the front lines, A Marine Writes Home, featured in Power Line blog.
Out in California, Berkeley researchers led by Professor Michael Hout, (Thursday's burstiest person) have issued a report indicating that Florida's electronic voting machines may have given more votes to President Bush than he actually got. Hout and his team compared totals from electronic machines with those from non-electronic voting machines, looking for discrepancies, to the tune of 130,000-260,000 votes from electronic machines that can't be explained away.
Also appearing among Thursday's bursty people is Michael Koubi, an Israeli interrogator who describes what it's that kind of work is like.
And from deep in the heart of red-state land come these two opposing stories. One, from the Washington Post, details a small Oklahoma town's rise to the defense of an openly gay student and a neighboring church's attempts to engage in what can only be described as non-Christian behavior. Next door in Austin, comes Internet hunting, a web site that offers rifle-triggered Internet access that lets users shoot at real live animals with a real gun. That's right, shoot a real live Bambi from the comfort of your....cyber office chair.
On the techie scene, today's most popular topic is Google's newly anounced Google Scholar, a search interface (now in a test version) that brings scholarship research to the desktop in a way only Google can.
BLOGPULSE NEWS: Don't forget to check out this week's newly announced Conversation Tracker. It's a new feature that allows BlogPulse users to see threaded views of initial postings and subsquent links to blog entries.
BLOGPUSLE TREND OF THE DAY: Who grabs the heftiest blog traffic among the key non-Bush players inside the Oval Office?
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 03:30 PM | Permalink
November 18, 2004
Dancing Cars & Congressional Footwork
For a moment, I was in a 1987 time warp, standing in a toy aisle and picking out a new Transformer toy for my son.
But then I woke up, and realized the action was coming from one of Tuesday's top links, a new U.K. television ad for the Citroen, in which a real car turns into a Transformer and does a dancin'-fool groove thang in the streets. Very cool. If you were/are a Transformer kid (they were introduced in '84), don't miss it. It's a direct download, so click on No. 8 link of Tuesday's top links.
Speaking of fancy footwork, those mandated Republicans wasted no time changing the ethics rules that govern Congress. They pushed through a quick rule change that allows leaders to stay in power even while under indictment, which Sen. Majority Leader Tom DeLay may soon be for fund-raising irregularities in a Texas redistricting investigation. (Quick question: is this indicative of the "moral values" the GOP touted during this month's election?)
Speaking of Texas values, a Texas town is ditching a longheld tradition in which girls dress as boys and boys dress as girls...because a parent complained that it had homosexual overtones. (In Texas, it's called TWIRP, for "the woman is requested to pay"; we used to call such events Sadie Hawkins days, begs the question, is Sadie Hawkins gay?). The school's attorney and a rights attorney chime in. Because of the woman's complaint, the school districted opted for the less-offensive (?) "Camo Day," in which kids dress up in military fatigues and camouflage gear (withold red-state comments, please).
FOOD NEWS: Someone's trying to sell a grilled cheese sandwich on eBay, claiming it has an image of the Virgin Mary on it. In the "food can never be BIG enough" department comes word of Hardee's "Monster Thickburger," which no doubt will keep cardiologists in business for another generation. And let's hear it for the fish, in whose honor People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has launched the Fish Empathy Project." Nemo and Charlie the Tuna would be proud.
Here's something to give the Dewey Decimal System a major headache: Adobe Bookshop in San Francisco is rearranging its 20,000 books by color, not by topic. The experiment is expected to last for a week.
TREND OF THE DAY: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the most blogged-about Star Wars character of all? The release of the movie trailer for the next Star Wars flick has caused a spike in discussion, led by (heavy breathing, heavy breathing, pounding music) Darth Vader.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 10:48 AM | Permalink
November 16, 2004
Cabinet Members, Gone. Lost City of Atlantis, Found?
Resignation Mania has taken hold in the nation's capital, which explains why outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell is Monday's leading personality in blogs, joined on the bursty people list by outgoing Bush Cabinet members Spencer Abraham (Energy), Ann Veneman (Agriculture) and Rod Paige (Education).
Resignations of another kind are taking place at the CIA, although a top-linked article in Newsday calls it more of a "purging" than a rash of resignations at the intelligence agency.
On the flip side, researchers think they've discovered the ancient lost city of Atlantis, based on sonar maps of the ocean floor near the island of Cyprus (and descriptions of the city in Plato's writings).
Speaking of finding things, the blog Buzz Machine has an interesting report about findings from a Freedom of Information Act filing it pursued. Blogger Jeff Jarvis wanted to find out how many complaints were filed with the Federal Communications Commission that ultimately led to a $1.2 million fine against Fox for "suggestive" material in its Married by America TV show. The origianl claim of 159 complaints boiled down to 3 actual letters (the rest were copies/photocopies of other complainers' letters).
Today's noted passing: Geff Rushton, founder of the musical group Coil.
Today's interesting political find is this essay called The Urban Archipelago, which offers yet another red-blue map and theory about why the Democrats lost this month's election. The authors argue that most of the blue state are, indeed, blue -- but only by virtue of the large cities that dominate them. And the only way Democrats can win is to continue to cater to and grow the urban base, where the voters who agree with traditional Democratic values -- tolerance, working wages, universal health care, mass transit, etc. -- live.
TREND OF THE DAY: Open the iPod bay doors, Hal....
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 01:30 PM | Permalink
November 15, 2004
Let's Hear It For Guys With Weird Names
When Bridget Jones, Harry Potter and Colin Firth lead the list of key people cited in blogs (and two of them are fictional), it's obvious that the high season of politics and presidential elections is officially over. In fact, Sunday's BlogPulse results seemed to sweep in an era focused on guys with weird names.
Getting a hefty amount of notice is first weird-name guy: Russell Jones, a founding member of the rap group Wu-Tang CLan and also known as ODB (for Ol' Dirty Bastard). He collapsed and died in a New York recording studio over the weekend after complaining of chest pains. Other ODB aliases over the years have included Joe Bannanas, Osirus, Dirt McGirt, Unique Ason and Big Baby Jesus.
Out on the left coast, the Gov-a-nator, Arnold Schwarzenegger has moved to No. 19 on Sunday's key people list, based partly on an a move afoot to amend the U.S. Constitution to allow non-U.S.-born citizens to run for President. (Wait, don't Republicans abhor the non-mainstream, Hollywood influence on politics....or was that a dream?)
Obviously, the new Bridget Jones Diary movie was a big hit, seeing that Bridget herself, and co-star Colin Firth, booted major political figures and world leaders out of the top 3 spots among key people.
That's not to say world news isn't on the minds of bloggers. Former CIA agent Michael Scheuer appears as the 6th-burstiest person in Sunday's results, and a Newsday article about the so-called "purge of the CIA" is also among the day's top links. Another of Sunday's top links, an interface called Faces of the Fallen, is a slide show hosted by The Washington Post and featuring photos of all soldiers killed in Iraq since March 2003. Click on each headshot, and the site provides a short biography and a sentence about how each soldier died.
But whatever you do, don't fall for the West Coast Pirate ruse that claims a German car commercial was never aired because of the creepy appearance of a misty ghost during the filming. Go watch it anyway, just for the fun of it. But don't say I didn't warn you.
TREND OF THE DAY: In the browser wars, Mozilla's Firefox is grabbing more and more attention.
BLOGPULSE NEWS: CONVERSATION TRACKER IS HERE! BlogPulse now features a home-page link to one of its showcase technologies, Conversation Tracker. Ever wonder how blog discussions emerge, evolve and get spread around? Let Conversation Tracker show you the thread patterns. It creates a threaded view of a conversation graph from a link to a post or to a new article (or any URL). And please be patient...it takes some time for BlogPulse to find all the information.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 10:30 AM | Permalink
November 12, 2004
Remembrances (Veterans, Arafat) and a Redux (Revs. Jerry & Bob Are Back)
Might as well mark a national holiday in honor of veterans with a little bit of poetry, which is exactly what bloggers did this week on Veterans Day. The poem Flanders Fields (which BlogPulse obviously interpreted as a name) showed up as Thursday's burstiest person, and its author, Lieut. Col. John McCrae, emerged as Nos. 2 and 3 on the list. References to Veterans Day also showed up in several contexts among key phrases.
For the first time in months, someone other than President George Bush or Sen. John Kerry took the top spot among key people cited in blogs, and that was the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, whose first name probably has more spelling variations than most. Also being remembered is writer Iris Chang, who took her own life this week in California. She's best known for writing The Rape of Nanking.
And for political watchers who figured last week's election results just might trigger an American time warp, it's here. The Rev. Jerry Falwell is re-branding and re-marketing his 1970s Moral Majority with a new name: The Faith & Values Coalition. (Like last time, his faith, his values, of course; he also "outed" the purple Teletubby).
And out at Bob Jones University, president Bob himself is making sure Mr. Bush gets the message from the conservative right. Directly from his letter, this verbatim (ahem) example of uniting, not dividing: "Don't equivocate. Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil. You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ. Honor the Lord, and He will honor you." So much for separation of church and state. (Here's an interesting exercise: re-read those letters/mission statements and substitute the references to Jesus/Christ with "Allah" or any other religious figure from around the world. Hmmmm....)
Shift to the Internet world, and Microsoft's new MSN Search is being test-driven this week. It's trying to take on Google and Yahoo! for a share of the search engine market. And techie-geeks (we use that phrase with all due respect) got a kick out of a Carnegie Mellon student's hidden-message $1,337 wager on Jeopardy's college tournament this week. Seems the numbers 1337 in "leetspeak" stand for "elite."
TREND OF THE DAY: Keeping an eye on the Middle East's key players will be intriguing as Arafat's replacements emerge and assume control.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 11:38 AM | Permalink
November 11, 2004
Suddenly, Attorneys General Are all the Rage....
A day after Attorney General John Ashcraft announced his resignation from President Bush's cabinet, the blogosphere lit up with discussion about his already-proposed replacement, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales (Wednesday's burstiest person).
In fact, Wednesday's key phrases refer to Gonzales in a variety of contexts, including his rulings about the Abu Ghraib torture investigations, his term as a Texas Supreme Court justice, speculation about his influence on civil liberties and more.
Today's top link has been inching up in popularity since last week's re-election of Bush, but good taste prevents the printing of its official title. Let's just say that it's a rant against the American South, written in the same frame of mind (and language) that VP Dick Cheney apparently was in when he dropped the "F-bomb" on Sen. Pat Leahy a few months back. (Wednesday's 4th top link might, a letter to the editor titled "Jesus Speaks Through Republicans," might serve as evidence of that rant, except it's written by a newspaper reader in the very northern state of Pennsylvania).
Satire's thick today in BlogPulse links as well, from this updated version of Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" titled "Declaration of Explusion." It's authored by Mike Thompson, past chairman of the Florida Conservative Union. And from The Onion comes a lead story titled Nation's Poor Win Election for Nation's Rich.
But hey, how about a few celebrations!
First, the Hindu community is celebrating Deepavali, a popular festival that symbolizes the victory of good over evil. And the U.S. Marine Corps celebrates is 229th birthday as well.
For the totally irreleveant, check out the Kevin F. Sherry Sweater Project. The creative cubicle here at BlogPulse thanks you, Kevin F. Sherry, for removing the so-called fashion statements from public circulation for good.
TREND OF THE DAY Pity the poor hockey fans still stuck in limbo over the NHL lockout.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 03:30 PM | Permalink
November 10, 2004
U.S. Voters Apologize, Mozilla Firefox Arrives, And The Dr. David Hager E-Mail Lives On....
Some U.S. residents reacted to the Nov. 2 presidential election results by threatening to move to a foreign country. But the folks at the Sorry, Everybody web site have adopted a different tactic: a worldwide apology, one photo at a time. It emerged as today's top-linked site in the blogosphere. So far, it's at more than 1,000 photos and growing. Its sponsors say that being willing to apologize, which some might interpret as a sign of weakness, instead signals "courage and strength" and serves as a tangible way to reach out tothe rest of the world to heal divisions and ease misunderstanding.
The fact that the term "electronic voting angst" appears as today's burstiest phrase has something to say about the power of last week's vote to stick in the national psyche.
In the world of Internet browsing, there's much ado about the release of Mozilla's Firefox web browser, which managed to receive several of today's' top 40 links and landed at No. 12 on today's list of key phrases. It's being hailed as faster, safer and more reliable than Internet Explorer.
And in order to get in the pre-Thanksiving Day mood, those folks at Jones Soda have outdone themselves this year. Not only are they resurrecting turkey-gravy-flavored soda that sold out so quickly last year, they've added these dinner-table flavors: mashed potatoes and butter, cranberry, green been casserole and fruitcake. Honest. Drink up?
At first, I scratched my head when I saw the Berlin Wall emerge among today's key phrases, until I remember that Nov. 9 is not only my parents' wedding anniversary (happy 58th!) but also the anniversary of the collapse of that famous barrier.
If you're of the mind that the next four years will bring even more attacks on personal/civil/human rights, well, perhaps the next two news tidbits could be more uplifting. First, USA Today reports that a Texas druggist has refused to fill a woman's birth-control pill prescription because he doesn't believe in it -- and that such tactics are being legalized throughout the U.S. That occured the same week that a years-old email warning of the appointment of ultra-conservative, religiously-inclined Dr. W. David Hager to chairmanship of a federal committee that oversees women's health issues. It's an email that's circulated for at least two years and continues to re-appear fairly regularly. The real scoop, available from Snopes.com, is that Hager was appointed to the committee in 2002, but not as chairman because of outcry from women's health advocates. Not that women should rest easier...but at least maybe they can retire the e-mail?
TREND OF THE DAY: A curious blip occured in the BlogPulse graph that tracks the seven deadly sins, and it occured on Electoin Day and the few days afterward. Anger, Pride and Greed showed a slight uptick on Election Day and for several days afterward. Linked, perhaps, with the "moral values" that people expressed to exit-pollers? And did you notice that the pollsters didn't ask WHICH values people voted inside the booth...yet commentators/spinners assumed were of the right-leaning, conservative, Christian kind?
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 09:52 AM | Permalink
November 09, 2004
CBS' Engberg Takes On the Bloggers
Former CBS news correspondent has a few things to say about bloggers, and not many of them are flattering.
Emerging in the No. 2 spot among today's bursty people, Engberg's essay titled "Blogging as Typing, Not Journalism" is raising some hackles in the blogosphere. Among his charges: much of the political blogging leading up to this year's election "was more reminiscent of (my) school newspaper or a 'breaker, breaker 19' gabfest on CB (radio) than anything appraoching journalism." And yet another: some maintstream-media-trashing bloggers "not only don't care about the veracity of the stories they are spreading, they do not understand when there is a live hand grenade on their keyboard. They appear not to care. Their concern is for controversy and 'hits.' "
Today, the Common Dreams' web site tracking potential vote-counting irregularities/fraud moved into the No. 1 spot among top links, and several versions of the red state/blue state maps that analyze last Tuesday's vote are emerging. One of the best finds is this voting-map extravaganza from Michael Gastner, Cosma Shalizi, and Mark Newman at the University of Michigan. Their maps factor in population density with the more staid red/blue "wins" by state or by county, producing some odd-looking but englightening maps of voter influence and concentration.
More voting-related discussion takes place at Black Box Voting (No. 7 among today's top links) and MSNBC's Keith Olberman's discussion of voting coverage (No. 8).
Political coverage is ebbing a bit, making way for more "normal" blog stuff, including several links to sightings of the Northern Lights (or aurora borealis, for those who like the sound of that phrase). That spectacle of the north appeared the same day that a team of international scientists issued a grave warning about the gradual and noticeable warming of the entire Arctic region.
And movie-going has crept back into BlogPulse as well, with references ot the new Star Wars trailer, speculation about Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and several links about last weekend's box-office hit, The Incredibles.
Today's top phrase reminds the nation that half a world a way, U.S. troops are engaged in some of the heaviest fighting yet in Iraq. The attack on Fallujah, dubbed "Operation Phantom Fury," has begun and appears as today's burstiest phrase.
TREND OF THE DAY: As Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat lies dying/brain-dead in a Paris hospital, speculation continues about Arafat's possible successor and the balance of power iin the Middle East.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 10:28 AM | Permalink
November 08, 2004
Evolutionary Tales...the Scientific Kind, the Democrat Party Kind
First, a bit of housekeeping: the trouble is not in your set. If you click on today's results for "key phrases" and nothing happens, it's not your fault. BlogPulse phrase-related data didn't register correctly over the weekend, and the tech team is working on tracking down the culprit. "Key People" and "Key Links" work fine, so click away!
And if you do click away, you'll see that post-election discussion hasn't abated one teeny bit, including plenty of soul-searching about the future of the Democratic party.
President Bush finally ranks at the top of the "key people" list...the first time in several months, in fact, on BlogPulse. Throughout the campaign, Sen. John Kerry consistently held the top spot among key people. The weekend Bush/Karl Rove announcement of intent to seek a U.S. constitutional amendment against gay marriage no doubt fueled Bush's rise.
One thing I've been hankering for is a regional/countywide breakdown of "red" vs. "blue" votes, and it's offered here by Princeton University. Maybe we're more purple than we think?
Frankly, one of the most interesting links in Sunday's results is an anonymous blog from a middle-aged Southern woman titled How You Could Have Had My Vote." For Democrats, it's sobering reading. For Republicans giddy about a "mandate," it's probably sobering reading as well.
Among the list of bursty people -- those who rise in blog discussion quickly -- comes the name of Andrew Veal, a Georgia man who apparently was so distraught over Bush's re-election that he committed suicide over the weekend in a secure area of the former World Trade Center site.
And if rumors or hints of conspiracies are in existence, they'll no doubt show up on the Internet and in blogs. Over at Common Dreams, a non-profit progressive news site, writers are looking at the possibilities of Florida vote-hacking in both the 2004 presidential election and previous elections. The BlackBoxVoting web site continues to appear in the top links among blogs as well for its continued, non-profit emphasis on fraud-free voting. In one Ohio precinct, Bush got several thousand more votes than there were registered voters. Election officials called it a "glitch;" (about 35 "glitches" like that could mean the difference between a Bush or Kerry win in Ohio).
On the ligher side, a tongue-in-cheek web site called "Marry An American" has been set up for Canadians eager to welcome their frustrated Democratic, disenfranchised Republican or apolitical neighbors to the North in the wake of Bush's re-election. It's like an across-the-border dating service web-site.
For evolutionary tales of another kind, a Wisconsin school district is in the hot seat for a decision to teach evolution and creationism as part of its science curriculum. Superintendent Joni Burgin makes to to No. 5 on the bursty people list.
FIND OF THE DAY: Have you seen 10x10 yet? It's a unique web site with this mission: "Every hour, 10x10 collects the 100 words and pictures that matter most on a global scale, and presents them as a single image, taken to encapsulate that moment in time. Over the course of days, months, and years, 10x10 leaves a trail of these hourly statements which, stitched together side by side, form a continuous patchwork tapestry of human life." It was created Jonathan Harris of Number27, during his residency (and in conjunction with) FABRICA communication research center in Italy. It showed up as No. 37 on today's top links.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 10:32 AM | Permalink
November 04, 2004
Blogs, Media Sites, Web Sites Saw Different Traffic Patterns for Election-Day Coverage and Post-Election Analysis
Intelliseek's BlogPulse tech team ran some interesting data about blog activity on Tuesday and Wednesday -- Election Day and the day after. Not surprisingly, the data differed slightly from data collected about political postings and links at Campaign Radar 2004 during the campaign-intensive weeks leading up to the election. Among them:
TOP MEDIA SOURCES: While the New York Times, Washignton Post and Yahoo! News were the most frequently cited news sources in political postings during the campaign season, the media sources sought out most by bloggers on Election Day itself took on a slightly different flavor. The top-linked media source was CNN.com (which featured great graphics on the progress of the election and electoral votes), followed by Yahoo! News, the New York Times, MSNBC.MSN.com, National Review, the BBC, Washington Post, Fox News, the Guardian (London) and Slate.com. New to the list was SFGate.com (no doubt becuase of interest in gay-marriage ballot initiatives in 12 states) and the English version of Aljazeera.net.
TOP POLITICAL BLOGS: The top three blogs for political posts didn't change but their rankings did. The liberal-leaning DailyKos received more links than The Drudge Report, which led among political blogs in the days leading up to the election. Instanpundit remained in third place. New among the list of top 10 political bloggers (at No. 17) was MysteryPollster.com, a blog that explains elections, voting, polling, exit polling, etc. in language that non-statisticians can understand. Well, given Tuesday's confusion, perhaps no one will EVER fully understand...but it's a good site for factual information.
TOP TEN NON-MEDIA, NON-BLOG WEB SITES: Perhaps the biggest shifts in links and postings occured among non-media, non-blog web sites. The official web sites of Sen. John Kerry and George W. Bush were joined on Nov. 2-3 by (in order) Electoral-Vote.com, Kerry's campaign web site, the polling site Zogby.com, activist/filmmaker Michael Moore's web site, the Bush campaign web site and MyPollingPlace.com, a site providing information about where voters' polling places were located. Also on the list, curiously, was TradeSports.com, a trading exchange for fantasy league athletes, oil futures, even political candidates. It already has a link for the 2008 presidential election. Bets, anyone?
TREND OF THE DAY: The health of the nation, anyone? Now that the election's over, it'll be interesting to pay attention to real, non-stump-speech issues like flu shots, health premiums and Medicare.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 05:22 PM | Permalink
Post-Election Analysis: Glee, Gloom & Every Emotion In Between
Well, there's plenty of post-election analysis, cheering and gnashing of teeth going on in the blogosphere, depending on which side of this uniter-divider election one happens to find one's self. So let's take a quick look at some of today's results.
Not surprisingly, all of Tuesday's 40 key people, 40 burstiest phrases and 37 of 40 top links are election-related.
The top two people in today's bursty people list include Kids for Kerry organizer Alana Wexler and Michael Benson, a Florida boy who donated his piggy bank money to Sen. John Kerry's campaign. Both were mentioned in Kerry's Wednesday concession speech, the text of which was reprinted in numerous blogs.
Andrew Sullivan's blog analyzes the breakdown of votes between Bush and Kerry, noting that while Kerry did well among liberals, moderates and the young, Bush gained ground among seniors and huge numbers of conservative Christians. Several blogs link to Bill Bennett's observation of a "huge fundamentalist Christian revival in this country." (Personal aside: a friend emailed me a new map of North America overnight, showing the West Coast, Upper Midwest New England and Canada as Canada, and the rest of red-state Americaas "Jesusland.")
How did international bloggers view the American election? A blog by Stephen N. (Canadian who recently returned from a job in France), offers his insights on the red-blue breakdown of the U.S. and concerns about the U.S. Electoral College.
A German blog, RochusWolf, is one of several that quotes Tuesday's No. 3 burstiest person, Konrad Olszewski, an international observer of elections in Miami, Fla., assigned there by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He said the U.S. elections were more complicated than those in Serbia, provided less access to observers than those in Kazakhstan, had fewer fail-safe measures than those common in Venezuela and had ballots more complicated than those used in the Republic of Georgia.
Other finds:
Michael Moore's home page posted only an image of Bush's face composed of photographs of individual U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. And the message, "we're not going away."
Joshua Micah Marshall's Talking Points Memo debates the question: Should Bush be given a fresh start?
Harper's Magazine, Tuesday's 12th-ranking blog link, offers "Electing to Leave," a breakdown of countries or locations that disgruntled Americans might want to consider for re-settlement.
William Selatan at MSNBC offers this piece of advice on running Democratic candidates in the future: Keep it simple, stupid.
And since the Christian vote apparently played such a large role in Tuesday's results, this incident in China, of a man trying to convert an uncoooperative lion to Christianity, simply must stand without comment.
And don't forget, BlogPulse results are often mentioned and discussed on Blogosphere Radio out of Canada.
TREND OF THE DAY: Now that the focus is/may be off the U.S. Presidential elections, will it quickly turn back to events in the rest of the world? Here's a look at international hot spots.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 10:51 AM | Permalink
November 03, 2004
It's Probably a Good Thing Bloggers Weren't in Charge...
Given the amount of bad information and exit-poll data that littered the Blogosphere by mid-day on Tuesday, it's probably best that bloggers weren't put in front of TV network microphones for the rest of the day. A few web sites and blogs posted mid-afternoon exit polls that predicted a John Kerry win in the electoral college...information that obviously proved wrong as Tuesday wore on.
So what do the day-after results say about bloggers' role and influence in the election? Because BlogPulse data is up to a day behind, Tuesday's results (based on Monday data) are filled mostly with predictions, voting-day experiences and running commentary. Wednesday's actual post-election content catches up to the results, and it's all there, from disappointment with a hint of determination, to shame, to running commentary, to unrivaled glee at the Republican sweep.
The Zogby Poll today posts a statement saying it stands by its data and proved all along that the race was close. Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly, who published early exit polls favoring Kerry, finds that later exit polls compiled by CNN more accurately reflected the results and Bush's win. Over at The Buzz Machine, blogger Jeff Jarvis has posted a "Post Election Pledge" that's worth reading. So are the comments. And poet John Greenleaf Whittier's ditty about Election Day is linked or reprinted in several blogs.
In non-election news, the late Dutch film director Theo Van Gogh continues to be tracked in BlogPulse. Van Gogh, who received death threats over his Submission movie about violence against women in Islamic societies, was killed in Amsterdam earlier this week. A suspect with Dutch-Moroccan ties has been arrested.
And for bizarre animal stories, there's always the news of "blood-sucking monkeys" attacking children at a Hindu temple in India.
TREND OF THE DAY: Let's not even think about politics today. Let's look at continuing talk of airline troubles and looming airline bankruptcies.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 11:55 AM | Permalink
November 02, 2004
The End of Elections...or The Beginning of a Recount?
Let no one tell you that American voters are apathetic this year. Not when 30 of Monday's 40 key phrases are election- or politics-related.
Not when 35 of Monday's top 40 key people mentioned in the blogosphere are somehow related to Election Day fervor..with only Harry Potter, Britney Spears, Ashlee Simpson, Martha Stewart and Avril Lavingne breaking the non-politico mold.
Not when 35 of Monday's top 40 blog links are politics-related and representative of idealogies and opinions from one end of the spectrum to the other.
The question remains: will politics remain at the forefront of blog opinion in the weeks AFTER the election? Only time will tell.
Appearing today as No. 3 among bursty people is retired Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf, who is asking Democrats to quit saying he supports Sen. John Kerry when he actually supports President George Bush. And Andrew Tannenbaum, creator of the Electoral Vote Predictor web site, is capturing plenty of blog buzz now that his identity is being widely circulated. On the nastier side of politics, critics continue to try to bash Kerry's military record while blogger/documentarian Joshua Bearrman catches Republican staffers posing as gay advocates in Florida, and rather badly at that. (Too bad dirty tricks didn't follow Richard M. Nixon out of office thirty years ago....)
For the record, Al Jazeera's web site has posted the transcript of Osama bin Laden's tape-recorded speech from earlier in the week. Even if only for historical purposes, it's worth reading.
TREND OF THE DAY: Election-day jitters continue their creep toward today.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 10:32 AM | Permalink
November 01, 2004
Scary Stuff...and We're NOT Necessarily Talking About Elections
Yeah, sure, the history of the future of the world rests on Tuesday's decisions at the polls. But what are bloggers REALLY talking about? Halloween left-overs and more sports curses/traditions, for one. And that extra hour of sleep provided by the weekend switch to Daylight Savings Time.
I guess the retailing experts are right: People DO get into Halloween bigger and better every year. Evidence? Among Sunday's bursty phrases, at least 24 of them refer to parties, candy treats, parties, scary movies, monster songs, haunted houses and other Halloween-related stuff.
On the costume front, the term French maid showed up among bursty phrases as did some sample winners of costume contests. Over at the Stranger.com web site, some biting-humor kiddie costumes have been getting plenty of blog traffic among top links since late last week. And just to prove that small rodents can have fun, too, check out Heather Sullivan's Hamsters in Hats. Honest.
Over at the sports desk, history buffs at Snopes.com are all abuzz over the latest sports curse/legend, to wit: in every year since 1936 that the Washington Redskins lost their last game before the Presidential election, the incumbent president has also lost.
And since we can't entirely ignore the election, two new political finds emerged in weekend BlogPusle results. First is the web site of the Internet Vets for Truth, and second is a Zogby International/Rock the Vote poll of all those young voters who are cell-phone-only citizens.
Today's Campaign Radar 2004 also uncovered a few interesting sites, including the top link in Iraq-related discussion. It's the Iraq Body Count web site, hosted by a group of European researchers, statisticians, students and others interested in keeping track of civilian casualities in Iraq.
BlogPulse News....BlogPulse is on the radio! The web site Blogosphere Radio, an effort by two Canadian guys who are fascinated by blogs, now features BlogPulse data and the occasional sound clip. Check it out!
TREND OF THE DAY: When it comes to paying the price, consumers are obviously watching the numbers at the gas pump roll faster and faster each day.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 10:48 AM | Permalink
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