Business Insights and Tender Moments

One of the great things about blogging is the opportunity to share wisdom and experiences, and BlogPulse features two great examples today.

One of this week's top blog posts and most-cited links comes from Odeo, Inc. founder Evan Williams at the evhead blog. That's where he shares his "Ten Rules for Web Startups," with advice ranging from "be narrow" to "be picky" to "be greedy." Although it has shades of the late 1990s, it's rooted in experience that other bloggers find helpful. "An excellent post packed full of purpose," says DevDawn. "Great real-world advice and insight," agrees Dig Tank.

Tender moments...and passings
Blogs also serve as sources of intimacy, sharing and condolence, and such is the case in Byzantium's Shores, which chronicles the death of Kelly Sedinger's child, Quinn, who had struggled with various health problems for his short life. It's touching, heartfelt and tender, and the Buffalo blogger has received personal sympathies from across the blogosphere. "Deepest condolences," offers Apostropher. And as Sedlinger himself notes: "I'd like to thank everyone who has dropped by and left good wishes either in the comments or in my e-mail. Words may seem inadequate to you, but to me, I treasure each and every one of them. Warren Ellis occasionally likes to note that 'The Internet is made of people,' and that is absolutely true."

Other Blog Notes
California Congressman Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham is among the week's burstiest people, now that the Republican has resigned for taking more than $2 million in bribes from defense contractors. More than one blogger noted the occasion with a headline along the lines of "another one bites the dust." And from memeland, (memes are specific threads or interfaces that bloggers pass around freely through links), comes this one from a LiveJournal blogger, titled "how to stop rape." Originally posted Nov. 21, it's gaining traction this week.

The Thanksgiving Come-Down: Bedbugs, Fairies and Space Aliens

Perhaps everyone's still on a tryptophan high from eating all those turkey leftovers? How else to explain the strange collection of bedbugs, English fairies and space aliens in today's blog discussions?

In case you didn't read Sunday's New York Times, you missed coverage of the return of the bedbugs (complete with photos, it's today's most-cited news story). Surprisingly (and kind of creepily, don't you think?), BlogPulse detected more than 1,000 search results for "bedbugs."

Don't disturb them, please
And in England, locals near Perthshire are upset at construction for a new housing development that's disturbing, yes, the fairies who inhabit it, according to the Times online. "Neat!" comes the endorsement from Here Be Bears blogger. "California," writes the Primis blogger, "you have been weighed and measured and found wanting. You have a loottt of catching up to do."

More tin-foil hats?
Maybe those guys at MIT were ahead of their time? Former Canadian defense minister Paul Hellyer is making space waves by calling for public hearings about extraterrestrials, and he even uses the " R word" (Roswell, NM). The Random Numbers blogger already has an aluminum-foil maple leaf ready to go. Little Green Footballs notes that the speech ended....not with harrumphing and a walkout, but with a standing ovation. Asks Daimnation: "When Canadians say they wish the American media would pay more attention to them, is this what they had in mind?" Don't think so.

Passings...Bloggers are mourning the weekend death of actor Pat Morita, whose Mr. Miyagi character in the "Karate Kid" movies is legendary. "Rest in peace, sir," offers Patchwork Earth in tribute.

What Will YOU Be Doing and Eating on Thanksgiving?

The BlogPulse team takes a vacation after today until Monday, and wishes all of our users a happy, safe and peaceful holiday. What will you do over the weekend? What culinary delights await? BlogPulse's trend-graping tool takes a look:

The menu
Will it be turkey, ham or vegetarian offerings this year?




The Activities
I often wonder if Grandpa Hausfeld has a corner chair in heaven, where after a big family meal, he settles in, opens the newspaper, places it over his head and falls asleep for the rest of the afternoon?



Turkey-Table Talk
And which topics of conversation will dominate the get-togethers this year?


Happy Thanksgiving!

Who Put That Door There?

Want to bet that the short video of President George Bush pulling on locked doors while trying to leave a Beijing press conference will be one of the most passed-around videos of the month? Oops, it already is, judging by today's BlogPulse results. Today's No. 4 and No. 9 top links and top two news stories (all from the BBC) feature that "What, Me Worry?" look on the face of the President and a link to the video. Is this the President's long-awaited exit strategy, asks J-Walk Blog? A Finnish blogger titles it simply, "Photo of the Day."

"There Is No God"
Comedian/illusionist Penn Jillette offered up a commentary for NPR's popular "This I Believe" segment, and it's today's second most-cited link. Except it's about a topic of non-belief, one sure to touch some nerves and titled simply "There Is No God." Metafilter calls it "a hell of a brave stand." Says Ratcliffe blog: it's provocative and convincing.

The list no one wants to make
Poor Camden, N.J. For the second year in a row, it's been named the country's most dangerous city, (today's 31st most-cited link), and it's not happy. The Trenchcoat Chronicles pokes fun, and "J's notes" is happy to be ranked No. 5.

You Gotta Hand It To Harry Potter

People, issues, scandals and controversies...they come and go in the blog world like relatives at Thanksgiving. Except for child-turned-teen wizard Harry Potter, whose $100 million Goblets of Fire opening weekend (chronicled at BlogPulse Spotlight) keeps him where he's been for most of BlogPulse's lifepsan: as the most-discussed personality in the blogosphere, a position made possible by teen-age gushes like this and this.

George Carlin was right
One of George Carlin's early-career comedy bits was about oxymorons....figures of speech that are contradictory in nature, such as "jumbo shrimp" and "military intelligence." Obviously the military intelligence reference needs to be expanded today, what with confusing military/governmental/news/international reports about whether Abu Masab al-Zarqawi, the head of Al Quaeda in Iraq, was killed (today's most-cited news story) or was not killed in a weekend raid in Mosul. As blogger Don Surber writes, "I will believe it when I see his mom walking alongside Cindy Sheehan demanding to see the president," and Wizbang blog can't help but deadpan, "Is al-Zarqawi dead again?"

And that's not all. Today's sixth most-shared web link is a Los Angeles Times story about "Curveball," one of the international intelligence sources who allegedly convinced Bush administration officials that Iraq had WMDs. Did they know, or is this piece an example of liberal media bias (isn't that phrase an oxymoron?). Former Sen. Bob Graham questions the intelligence he was fed in an op-ed in the Washington Post (today's No. 13 top link).

What does a BlogPulse trend graph find when comparing sound/reliable/verifiable intelligence with its faulty/questionable counterpart?



Murtha speaks
Ever since Rep. John Murtha let loose last week with an emotional appeal to begin a scheduled withdrawl of U.S. troops from Iraq, the decorated Marine, Vietnam War veteran and long-time Congressional military expert has been a promiment source of blog discussion, ranking as last Thursday's burstiest person and today's No. 3 and No. 18 most-discussed personality. Ohio Rep. Jean Schmidt, a Congressional newcomer who paraphrased the term "coward" when discussing Murtha's position last week (last Friday's sixth-cited link), also got her share of publicity, not much of it positive. She later asked that her remarks on the floor of the House be removed from the record.

Call for Papers for Third International Workshop on Weblogging Ecosystems

The Third International Workshop on Weblogging Ecosystems will take place in May 2006 in Edinburgh, Scotland/UK. As with the previous workshops, this is being held in conjunction with the International World Wide Web Conference (WWW-2006). The call for papers for the workshop is now available online.

Key organizers include members of the BlogPulse/Intelliseek team. As with previous workshops, organizers are calling for papers describing research related to textual, visual, graphical and/or sociological analysis of the blogosphere. In addition, they also have announced the release of a large data set of weblog posts in conjunction with the workshop.

Please visit the CFP link/site for details, and please feel free to distribute this CFP to colleagues and to appropriate mailing lists.

Blog of the Week: Bobby Henderson and The Flying Spaghetti Monster phenomenon

If you haven't heard of the fervent believers in the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM), if you haven't been touched by his Noodly Appendage, if you haven't read about the Pastafarian movement, you obviously haven't been paying attention. At least not to the ongoing (and now approved) debate in the great state of Kansas, where "intelligent design" has been voted into the science curriculum as an alternative to evolution.

Earlier this year, when the Kansas Board of Education opened the doors to alternate theories about how the world started, Bobby Henderson, a 25-year-old, single, unemployed physics major from Corvallis, Oregon, walked right in. He wrote a letter asking the Kansas educators to consider teaching HIS theory that the world was, in fact, created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster (complete with a pirate side story and a nod to global warming). When he got no response, he posted the letter to a web site.

The FSM/"Open Letter" site has become a popular destination for bloggers, sporadically but routinely ranking among the most-shared links at BlogPulse.com. It's also launched a line of FSM/Noodly Appendage products (one of which recently sold on eBay for $510). Henderson describes the phenomenon in an e-mail interview.

Q. Where did the idea for Flying Spaghetti Monster come from and who was involved? Was it a spur-of-the-moment thing or had it been in the works for a while?
A. "The original letter was spur of the moment, written when I couldn't sleep one night. It was as much for my own amusement as anything. As for the Flying Spaghetti Monster himself, it was divine inspiration, I think. I never planned on putting (the letter) online...it was months before I finally got around to it. (I was) annoyed by receiving no reply."

Q. The letter/site has obviously spawned an entire movement. Were you surprised by the reaction?
A. "Yes, of course I was surprised by the explosion of the site. It's received well over 100 million hits now, currently at about 1 to 2 million/day (including hot-linked images, which I totally support - helps spread the propaganda). I have received more than 18,000 e-mails, currently 5,800 unread. I get anywhere from 50 to 300 e-mails a day, depending on the news."

Q. I'm sure you've been interviewed by news media outlets all over the place. Where, and what were the most unusual ones? (I'm assuming you've had international coverage as well?)
A. "I have no idea how many interviews I've done now, but I prefer the international ones. Had an interesting one from the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). The project caught their attention because at one point the Flying Spaghetti Monster (also FSM) was out-Googling their government home page."

Q. Despite your best efforts, the Kansas board decided (in early November) to adopt intelligent design anyway. How do you interpret the vote?
A. "The Kansas vote wasn't a surprise. But it is interesting that no one mentioned teaching FSM. (Check this out: If you do a Google search for "intelligent design," the Open Letter site ranks No. 5; the Discovery Institute (which promotes intelligent design) ranks No. 11). FSM is now the preferred theory of intelligent design, and still we're being ignored. It makes me think that the conservative Kansas school board members are actually closet Pastafarians, only pretending to be close-minded religious nuts in order to garner the support of the conservative community. Now that they've taken control of the Board, they're working from the inside, re-defining science to include supernatural theories, thus opening the door for FSM to be taught one day."

Q. Will Kansas voters do next year what Dover PA voters did this year? (for the unaware: they voted all the Intelligent Design proponents off their school board on Nov. 8).
A. "I suspect there will be a lawsuit disputing the Kansas school board's right to re-define science to allow magic (supernatural theories = magic). It's hard to say if the conservative members of the Board will get the boot in the next elections because you have to remember, the entire state of Kansas is crazy. They don't let you in unless you think the earth is less than 5,000 years old and that we all rode around on dinosaurs, etc.

"If I had a dinosaur, he would eat whoever I wanted him to."

Q. There's now an entire product line of FSM/Pastafarian/Noodly Appendage stuff. Do people just send you ideas? Do you have a quality control person?
A. "The FSM merchandise wasn't my idea. Everything for sale was asked for by [crazy] people. There have been somewhere around 20,000 shirts sold now. I actually saw someone with an FSM emblem on their car a while ago. I heard a rumor that FSM stuff will make really good Christmas presents. All proceeds will go toward The Cause."

Q. Pirates? Did you have any inkling that real pirates would, in fact, be in the news this year (raiding cruise liners?).
A. "I received hundreds of emails about that 'pirate attack' on the cruise ship. Incidentally, we saw no change in global weather because REAL pirates use swords. They don't have machine guns and speedboats."

Q. What's next?
A. "Next, we're going to form a 'real' church, set up as a non-profit organization, and then purchase a pirate ship for missionary work, completely tax-exempt. Anything and everything the other religions get away with, we're going to try. I'm totally serious about the pirate ship, by the way.

"Most importantly, there's an FSM book coming out in February (The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster). I am pretty sure the other religions are going to just give up after reading it."

Man, They Must LOVE Secret Meetings in D.C.

Judging by today's blog discussions, you'd think that nearly everyone in Washington D.C. is or has been involved in clandestine, secret, closed-door, anonymous-source meetings, and has been doing so for a long time.

Washington Post editor (and Watergate reporter) Bob Woodward is today's burstiest person and third most-discussed personality for revealing that one of his sources (still unnamed) told him Valerie Plame/Wilson was a CIA operative almost a month before now-indicted Lewis "Scooter" Libby allegedly told New York Times reporter Judith Miller. Is special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald a bumbling Clousea? wonders Wizbang blog? Will the late admission tarnish Woodward's reputation? wonders The Moderate Voice. Promethus 6 points out that Libby's been indicted for obstructing justice, not leaking anyone's name. Which raises the point: who WAS Woodward's source (hmmmm...where have we heard that question before?)

A BlogPulse trend graph tracks Woodward-related buzz in May (when Deep Throat's identity as the secret Watergate source was revealed) and now:



More secret meetings: oil execsToday's second most-shared news story details what some have suspected for a while: that leading oil company executives met with Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force in 2001, according to documents uncovered by the Washington Post, despite repeated denials from Cheney (today's top key phrase) and the execs. "No wonder we're running out of oil," comments the Sierra Club; the blogger at Thoughts of an Average Woman is outraged.

Google...again
But what's utmost on bloggers' minds? Google, of course, which this week launched Google Base (today's top blog post), a new service allowing users to load content (including free classified ads, job postings, etc.) to Google's database. "Yuck" and "ugly," says TechCrunch; a "major undertaking," says John Battelle at SearchBlog; "time will tell" says SearchEngineWatch.

Foreign media only?
>Can't help but notice that only foreign media, particularly the BBC, (today's 9th-most-cited news story) have been covering the use of "white phosphorus" (a flesh-burning agent, similar to napalm) by U.S. troops during the assault on Fallujah. We've found the chemical weapons, says twistedchick at Free Speech Zone...and they're ours?

Strange Political Hook-ups

When a Republican-dominated Senate begins to stand up to White House policy, and when Arianna Huffington has a late-night "chillin' " dinner with Iraqi Ahmad Chalabi, you know strange hook-ups are happening on the political front. It's all captured in the blogosphere today.

Revisionist spin for all!
The current wave of paradigm shifting comes at a time when President Bush's approval ratings are at all-time lows (today's No. 2 top news story) and observers are questioning Bush's war policies and spin (today's 4th most-shared news story) and what one op-ed writer (No. 8 news story) calls "scare tactics." Slate examines the new "I was wrong but so were you" thinking (No. 9 top news story). Republicans are responding (today's No. 9 top link) with a new video of high-ranked Democrats vowing their 2002 support for toppling Saddam Hussein and some conservatively righteous indignation (no pun intended, really). Revisionist reactions abound. (Shouldn't the core question be about which commander-in-chief knew the entire truth about WMD and other Iraq issues and did/didn't share it in 2002 before asking for Congressional support?)

Should we stay in Iraq or start to figure out how to leave with honor (hmmm...when have I heard that phrase before)? A BlogPulse trend graph tracks buzz. Note: the August spike coincices with Marine mom and anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan's visit to the Bush vacation ranch in Texas.



Drink up, kids!
lf you thought the folks at Jones Soda couldn't top last year's turkey-and-dressing-flavored cola, you were wrong (today's No. 14 top link). Potential taste-tester reactions to salmon-flavored soda range from an understated "ewwww" to a slightly more gastronomic "my guts are lurching" (from the aptly named Crusty Stinkersquirt) to a heady "oh, the prescience!" headline at iracane.com. (Thanks, but I'll stick with RC Cola).

Explain, please?
I want no-tax-but-still-spend Republicans to explain this (really? a fiscal hurricane?) and I want intelligent design's proponents to explain this.

It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like...You Guessed It...the Holidays

No doubt you've already heard Christmas carols at the mall (I have, and I scurried away as fast as I could since that music should NEVER start playing until the day after Thanksgiving, thank you). And turkey extravaganza comes next week. True to the season(s), bloggers are starting to drop hints about shopping (today's 7th most popular key phrase), next week's long holiday weekend and even Christmas trees. Not surprisingly, Thanksgiving and Christmas dominate holiday-related buzz in the blogosphere, according to a BlogPulse trend graph (the October Thanksgiving spike refers to Canada's Thanksgiving celebration):



Hot new stuff from Google
They never seem to quit at Google, and today's most popularly shared link takes users directly to Google Analytics, a new web analytics tool. PlasticBag.org is impressed with the features. Popularity of the new service is evident in the multi-language citations about Google Analytics...five of the first 10 are non-English links.

Still hot-under-the-collar re: Sony
Sony BMG, meanwhile, is backtracking on its anti-piracy CDs.

And more heat targeted at Target
The bloggers at Ameriblog and Hughes for America are launching a boycott of Target, which is allowing its on-staff pharmacists to delay or not fill prescriptions for the Plan B morning-after contraceptive on moral grounds. "Target is caving to America's Taliban, and it needs to stop," says John at Ameriblog, today's No. 5 top blog post. As always, bloggers react.

Today's moment of levity
For those who loved Theodor Geisel's rhymes, you'll love today's 39th most popular link: "If Dr. Seuss Wrote for Star Trek.

Challenging Entrenched Entities, such as HIV, IE and Tin-Foil Hats

Sure, the HIV virus and Internet Explorer have nothing in common with each other, except this: today's blog discussions that challenge the long-term staying power of both.

Today's top news stories, for example, encompass BBC coverage of a UK man, Andrew Simpson (today's No. 2 burstiest person), whose body apparently has successfully (although questionably) fought off the HIV virus (No. 2 top news story) and another BBC piece (No. 13) about research efforts to use genetically modified bacteria to interfere with HIV reproduction. Only one hitch: Simpson apparently doesn't want to participate in more tests.

$1 to switch?
Today's ninth most-shared link outlines a campaign called Kill Bill's Browser, with Google offering $1 for each referral/person who switches from Internet Explorer to Firefox. BoingBoing (today's No. 30 top blog post) describes the campaign. Comments at the Uneasy Silence blog span common reactions.

Patriotism and such
A good portion of today's top blog posts pit right-wing views on the intelligence that led the U.S. into war (and resulting opinions of President George Bush, the concept of patriotism, and who voted for what) against left-wing grapplings with the bad intelligence they were subjected to, such as this "I Was Wrong on Iraq" column from former Sen. John Edwards. And while pundits debate, the name of Ali Hussein Ali is No. 3 among today's burstiest people. He was on one of the suicide bombers responsible for the hotel bombings last week in Jordan, and his widow has been arrested as a fourth bomber whose belt didn't explode.

Your face in the blogosphere
Blogger Philipp Lenssen from Germany wrote to inform BlogPulse of his new site, Forty Faces, which updates every half hour and features the photos of bloggers who just posted new entries. Details on how to include your face are at the site.

Passings...
Wrestlers today are mourning the weekend death of 38-year-old Eddie Guerrero, today's burstiest person. The World Wrestling Entertainment beefcake was found dead in a Minneapolis hotel on Sunday.

Tin-Foil Hats May Not Work!
If the guys at MIT with too much time on their hands are to believed, those tin-foil hats may not deflect brain-sucking radio waves as proficiently as some folks think.

Blog of the Week: Frank Warren at PostSecret

About a year ago, the 41-year-old owner of a document delivery business in Germantown, MD, printed 3,000 postcards with a message that invited their finders to write a personal, anonymous secret on the blank side and mail it back to him. Frank Warren left the postcards in art galleries, restaurants, between pages of library books and on subway seats. And as the postcards started trickling back to his mailbox, he began posting a few of them each week at what has become one of the web's most popular blogs: PostSecret.

PostSecret ranks 55th among BlogPulse's top 10,000 blogs (view profile), and it's soon to emerge as a hardcover book, PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives (HarperCollins, Nov. 29 publication). The project combines art, poetry and psychological candor in ways that few other endeavors have, and that's what makes it so fascinating to Warren, a self-described "accidental artist." (Some recent secrets on the blog, where about 20 new cards are posted each week: "By the time you read this, I'll be drunk again." "I've been giving oral sex to a pastor for the past 5 years. He's married. I don't believe in God." "I am a breast cancer survivor. Sometimes I wish the cancer had killed me." And on a New Yorker subscription card: "I think it makes me look smart to subscribe. But I only like to read the cartoons!").

One LiveJournaler calls the site "voyeuristic"; the blogger at Canned Platypus is drawn in because it captures both the "richness and weirdness of the human experience." Warren talks about the project's unexpected popularity and appeal.

Q. How many entries have you received for PostSecret?
A. "Even though I quit handing out postcards after the first 3,000, people started home-making their own postcards and mailing them to me. I started getting postcards not only from the immediate area, but from all over the country and from other countries as well. When I started the blog, I posted a goal of trying to receive 365 secrets before the end of this year. The year hasn't ended yet, and I have over 10,000."

Q. What's been the most surprising thing to you about this entire project?
A. "I'm not shocked any more, but I am surprised every day. I'm surprised at how candid people can be...the raw honesty and different kinds of surprises that arrive every day. Some of the postcards are funny, some are filled wiht anguish and remorse, some of the cards tend to feel like they're from people who are working out how best to deal with their own secret as they confess it to somebody else, and some look like they're sent by people who are searching for absolution."

Q. What effect has PostSecret had on you personally?
A. "Sometimes, I feel this project picked me instead of me picking it. After I started receiving secrets in the mail, some of them reminded me of secrets in my own life that I hadn't even acknowledged to myself. A humiliating childhood experience I hadn't told anyone about for 30 years sort of bubbled up. I wrote that secret down on a postcard and shared it with my daughter and my wife, and I mailed it to myself. That card has become part of the project. Sometimes I wonder if the reason I started this project was because there was this secret inside of me, below my own awareness, that was trying to get out and let me come to terms with it. But that's a pretty complex way for it to be recognized and dealt with."

Q. How do you explain PostSecret's popularity and appeal?
A. " The broadness of the interests and the different types of people participating in this project has been surprising. It wasn't that long ago when I was called by MTV2...they wanted me to do a piece on the PostSecret project. Later that same day, I had a meeting with the web director of the AARP, because they wanted to do something about PostSecret, too. That's how broad the interest has been."

Q. The confessoins run the gamut of emotions and experiences...how do you explain that?
A. "Sometimes people visit the site and might initially come there thinking it's going to be some kind of vicarious thrill, but after they read a few of the secrets, they start to recognize their own secret or the common humanity that they're sharing with these strnagers. They can read something that touches them deeper than things they've talked about with close friends and family. The Internet can foster real human connection."

Q. What have you learned from the project about human secrets?
A. "There are two kinds...ones we keep from others, and the ones that we hide from ourselves. I like to receive and post secrets that are joyful and happy and optimistic and talk about an unseen kindness performed, but I don't get a lot of those. I think it's because by nature, secrets are those things that we feel shameful about and hide, or if we do have positive things like that happen to us, we're more likely to share them with our friends rather than bottle them up inside."

Q. How much time does it take to manage PostSecret?
A. "I get about 350 postcards a week now. I spend more time on PostSecret now than I do my own business, and my business was a lot more profitable before this project, but I feel this is part of the mission. It gives me a lot of gratification doing this kind of work. I get a lot of e-mails from people who talk about an experience of healing, or how mailing in a postcard allowed them to face their secret and deal with it, release it, literally and figuratively. That makes me feel good..."

The Evolution of Intelligent Design: Plays Fine in Oz, Not So Much in Pennsylvania

If Tuesday's election results prove anything, it's that kids in Kansas and kids in Dover, Pa., may soon be taking very different science tests...or that intelligent design supporters may fleeting one-termers when it comes to their 15 minutes of fame. Discussion about the divergent votes in two states dominates the blogosphere today, capturing 12 of today's top links, two of the day's today's two top key phrases and throwing at least five school board members into the limelight among the day's 10 burstiest people.

Here's what happened: on Tuesday, the Kansas Board of Education adopted new science standards (today's top three news stories) that approve intelligent design -- the thinking that life evolved with the help of a higher power -- as part of a curriculum that sheds doubt on Charles Darwin's (scientifically accepted) theory of evolution. Also on Tuesday, voters in Dover, Pa., tossed off the school board an entire slate of candidates who had supported intelligent design. Foreign news sources seem as interested in the news as did U.S. media.

And here's the reaction: Panda's Thumb, today's top blog post, notes that incoming members of the Dover school board support intelligent design...but in comparative religion classes, not the science lab. As for the state from which Dorothy Gale hails, "What's the matter with Kansas?" asks blogger Joe Gandelman, who notes that the board's decision also redefines science "so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena." Pharnygula, in fact, says Kansas offspring will be taught the equivalent of "slippery twaddle." The Ratcliffe blog guessed correctly -- that the vote would just fuel the fires of the Flying Spaghetti Monster believers, who are back at No. 5 among today's top links (with more T-shirts! Halloween FSM costumes! Car magnets!). A BlogPulse trend graph also tracks the discussion:



Flip flops?
More than a few bloggers are pointing out that the text of the Texas' Tuesday-passed man-woman-only marriage amendment, if read literally, bans marriage altogether. Mother Jones raises the question. Also raising questions are reporters who want to know why the White House changed change the transcript of a White House press briefing from Scott McClellan saying "that's accurate" to Scot McClellan saying "I don't think that's accurate." Frankly, I don't think that's right.

And a little something for the brain
Don't forget to waste time checking out the Blue Ball Machine.

Zen, Feminism and Technology: It Doesn't Get Much More Inclusive Than This

Perhaps it's an issue you never seriously thought about, but blogger Garr Reynolds did: Does Apple's Steve Jobs or Microsoft's Bill Gates possess more Zen-like qualities during public appearances? Jobs obviously wins in the "simple is more" department. "Wow," says Lee of Australia, while author/marketer/blogger Seth Godin points out that the contrasting images in Reynolds' comparison are a "vital and essential warning sign to anyone who has ever considered giving a presentation." Just for curiosity's sake, which computer mogul captures more blog buzz? (Jobs' June spike coincides with Apple's Intel chip announcement).



Feminist voice, and T-shirts
Never let it be said that women's voices aren't represented in the blogosophere. Today's most popular blog post (and 10th most-shared link) is a LiveJournal Cereta's essay on male privilege. The blogger at Alchemy Without Moles applauds with a two-word review: "oooh, thinky." And for women upset with the slogans on Abercrombie & Fitch's new T-shirts, the Countess is holding a contest for alternative feminist T-shirt slogans. Protein Wisdom calls it what it is: a girlcott.

VOD, and the Ping of Death
First came Apple's deal to load ABC's TV shows into the video iPod for $1.99 a show, and now NBC and CBS are getting into the video on demand (VOD) biz as well (today's No. 19 top link). Or as Good Morning Silcon Valley describes the agreement: "New from Comcast: Pay $.99 to watch an episode of a show you could record for free on DVR."

And what's the ping of death, you ask? It's among the top 10 worst software bugs, as chronicled by Wired News (today's No. 5 top link). Others include the Mariner 1 space probe (wrong computer code), Therac-25 medical accelerator (which delivered a bit too much radiation to hospital patients), and the Ping of Death, the code responsible for the ever-popular "blue screen of death."

Chemical weapons...found?
And todays' disturbing blog discovery is a claim made in the most-shared news story from The Independent Online -- that U.S. troops used "white phosphorus" for more than illumination purposes during the 2004 assault on Fallujah? Juan Cole at Informed Comment offers an analysis; "hope like hell this isn't true," says John Cole at Balloon Juice.

Darwin + Genesis = "Perfectly Compatible"

According to a Catholic cardinal, Charles Darwin and the Book of Geneis are "perfectly compatible" if folks are reading the Bible correctly. That tidbit is today's fourth most-shared link among bloggers and 18th top news story, and it's only one example where bridges apparently are being built between evangelicals and those who prefer a little science with their beliefs. Today's No. 10 top-shared link describes a movement by evangelical Christians to support the environmental movement as part of their mission to support stewardship of the earth. John Cole at Balloon Juice calls it an "interesting coaliton"; BrothersJudd have this observation: "Forget science; argue soul."

Administratively speaking
Several issues that are rooted in the Bush Administration's blueprint for controlling terrorism continue to swirl through the blogosphere, including the Washington Post's examination of the FBI's increased use of "national security letters" (today's No. 2 top link) as part of the U.S. Patriot Act. "Someone is watching," observes Obsidian Wings; By the Bayou thinks maybe the FBI should become the DKI? President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney continue to claim "we do not torture" while arguing for stricter detainee policies.

Rah team?
Renee Thomas and Angela Keathley are today's burstiest people for apparently putting a little too much sis-boom-bah in their off-field routines for the North Carolina Panthers. Says DovBear: "Best COPS episode, ever!"

Which do bloggers prefer?
With continuining scrutiny of who leaked what (today's top blog post) and who should resign or be fired (today's No. 32 top blog post), we ran a few terms through a BlogPulse trend graph to see how the honesty vs. lies battle plays out:

Some Are Calling it The French Revolution

The continuing riots and unrest in Paris and elsewhere in France capture some of the mindshare among bloggers today, with reactions ranging from Mary Steyn's "Wake Up, Europe, You've Got a War on Your Hands" column in the Chicago Sun-Times (today's fourth most-shared news story) to blogger Don Surber's description of the upheaval as "L' Intifada." T. Longren's observation is equally pointed: "To hell in a handbasket." The riots, in fact, have garnered more blogger attention than the anti-Bush protests being staged at a world summit in Argentina.

How intelligent was the intelligence?
Attention is also zeroing in on an issue that was at the heart of the Watergate scandal, captured in that famous question: What did you know and when did you know it? Only this time it's about pre-war intelligence that led to the war in Iraq, captured in today's top links from the New York Times. Did senior officials know that "Mr. Libi," one of the foreign sources for some of the intelligence and today's third burstiest person, and his "intelligence" were both dubious?

Death by Caffeine
Yes, you heard that right, and before anyone gets bummed by news of riots and questionable due diligence at the highest levels of government, we turn today to the No. 7 top link, called Death By Caffeine, in which you choose your favorite caffeine-laced beverage to find out how many it would take to do you in. Says one Mountain Dew fan: "what a way to go..."

Technical Innovations, Embarrassing Emails, and Distrubing Riots

Technical and Internet innovations move to front-and-center today, including a sneak peak at Yahoo!'s new maps from Jeremy Zawodny (today's No. 2 top blog post). SearchViews likes the new features, including multi-point driving directions; Tom Rafferty is less-than-impressed.

Microsoft's Live
This week, Microsoft also pulled the veil off its new portal page, Live. The beta version has already inspired so-so reviews from Joel on Software (today's No. 4 top blog post). Gear Live wonders, "is Microsoft scrambling?" to compete with Google and OpenOffice.org? Other techie issues being debated in the blogosophere include bloggers' discovery of anti-piracy embedded rootkits in Sony BMG compact discs and the launch of Google Print, a scannable libary of 10,000 books.

Heck of a job, Brownie...
One more reason to be careful what you say in your work emails: they might come back to haunt you. Especially if you're former FEMA director Mike Brown, who's back in the not-so-flattering limelight (today's 12th-most blogged-about personality) because of the online publication of some of the e-mails he sent during and after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast (today's most-shared link) and No. 3 top news story). The Louisiana Congressman who got access to the emails posted them online. In a Sept. 4 exchange, a FEMA rep advised: "In this crises (sic) or on TV you just need to look more hard-working...ROLLL UP YOUR SLEEVES." During exchanges about breached levees, missing Superdome roof tiles and ice shipments, Brown jokes about his clothing and asks for dog-sitter recommendations. Read 'em...and yeah, sigh. (Then weep). Maybe those kinds of emails explain these kinds of poll results (today's No. 5 news story)?

Riots in Paris
Today's 7th-most-shared news story, about riots in Muslim and immigrant neighborhoods of Paris, are worrisome to bloggers because of what they portend for the U.S., as La Shawn Barber points out. Other perspectives come from Gateway Pundit, an American in Paris and Blogs of War.

Quicker BlogPulse results
BlogPulse's speed and performance underwent some significant tweaks this week, and bloggers have noticed.

A Public Affairs Smorgasbord

Ah, Those Little-Known Legislative Rules. No Wonder Everybody Loves Congress So Much
Maybe if when you were a kid and you had a secret club, and you had second thoughts about letting somebody in your club, but you did, and then that kid all of a sudden used an arcane provision in your club rules to seal off the treehouse and go into an even-more secret session, you can sympathize a little bit with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, the Tennessee Republican, whose rage is depicted up and down our top links today (he's also our no. 10 key person). Minority Leader Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat, got them to pull up the ladder to the treehouse Tuesday and put the cardboard shutters on the windows, because (he said) the Senate needed to discuss the rationale for which the United States entered the war in Iraq. The Republicans were so angry that at times they were spinning around in circles, and in a town where they've got a Supreme Court nominee coming up soon, they certainly won't forget when another kid embarrassed them in their own backyard.

For A Secret War, Secret Prisons
Speaking of hush-hush proceedings, BlogPulse features a few stories today about another point of controversy roiling the nation's capital: the string of secret prisons used by the CIA to detain, interrogate (and torture) terrorism prisoners. Even the Bush Administration itself is divided on how exactly to use the foreign-based installations, according to the NYT, and how brutal the intelligence officers acting in our name are permitted to be. This line of discussion has made many bloggers uneasy, including Professor Bainbridge, who wrote: "The Constitution is not a suicide pact, but there are limits beyond which a civilized democracy should not go." Who said anything about 'civilized?'

Other Affairs Of State Carry On, Too
There are lots of other things to learn about in BlogPulse today, too, as loyal readers will no doubt discover... President Bush isn't a man who carries a lot of gear, it seems; bloggers just can't seem to let go of Lamb and Lynx; and Michelle Malkin, who never tires of sanctimoniously decrying "the left" and its "vile bile- filled political discourse" ::yawn!:: is at it again. If it all seems like too much — and darn if it doesn't — consider planning a getaway to Denver. They seem like they know how to chill out there.

BlogPulse Improvements
Whether you've noticed or not (and we hope you did), BlogPulse's performance
is now much speedier when returning links and performing searches, thanks to
the ever-diligent BlogPulse engineering team. A combination of upgraded
hardware and software tweaks should make BlogPulse about four times faster.
Enjoy!

Estrogen vs. Testosterone: Women's Issues Muscle Into the Discussion

The nomination of another middle-aged white guy to the U.S. Supreme Court has shifted blog discussion toward women's issues, intended or not.

Maureen Dowd's examination of the women's movement, What's a Modern Girl to Do?, excerpted from an upcoming book, is today's 10th most-shared link, with reactions ranging from Nichelle Newsletter's "get thee to a nursing home!" rallying cry to Bamber's less-than-flattering reaction.

And if the issue of abortion weren't enough to divide religious reds from coastal blues, today's most linked-to news story, about a vaccine for cervical cancer, will add to the gap. Conservatives are questioning the vaccine on the grounds that it might encourage teen-age girls to have sex. Pharyngula wonders about the wisdom of questioning a cancer-preventing vaccine; PatridiotWatch wonders how that line of un-healthy thinking might play out intimately. (If it were a vaccine for prostate cancer, would the fears be the same? Hmmm...)

Worried about winter?
Speaking of fears, can't help but notice increasing attention to bird flu and other potential threats for the Winter of 2005:




Let the showdown begin?
Tensions are ratching up in the nation's capital, and not solely because of Appeals Court Judge Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court. Adding to the fray are Tuesday's hastily called closed Senate session (today's No. 9 top news story) by Sen. Minority Leader Harry Reid (today's fourth most-discussed blog personality) to hash out the Bush Administration's prewar intelligence, with plenty of bloggers posting Reid's statement in its entirety. That pushed former Office of Management and Budget Directory Larry Lindsay into the burstiest person spotlight because he's cited in the memo as another administration official who was "let go" for, supposedly for stating the facts about the war.

The next chapter
And while no one's able to predict what'll happen to recently indicted Vice Presidential Chief of Staff Lewis Scooter Libby, Tuesday's BlogPulse Spotlight blog found this little gem about Libby's juicy extra-curricular writing endeavors, a fitting beginning to National Novel Writing Month.

This Time, Conservative Reaction is Supremely Positive

The same conservatives who blasted Harriet Miers as a possible Supreme Court judge are welcoming President Bush's nomination of Samuel Alito, who is today's burstiest person among bloggers (ranking behind only Harry Potter).

Alito's nomination also consumes 25 of today's top 40 blog posts, with reactions ranging from Think Progress' crstyal-ball examination of America's future with Alito on the bench to PoliPundit's number-crunching about Alito's chances of being voted in or out. PowerLine bloggers are tallying votes, too.

A BlogPulse trend graph shows that Harriet Miers captured much more intense discussion throughout her brief nomination period:




Alito Analysis
The Volokh Conspiracy looks at the influence of religion (that is, Catholicism) on the Supreme Court, Blue Mass. Group takes a liberal's view of Alito's kind of law, and The Rude Pundit is well, mad AND extremely rude (no link; it's THAT rude). Taegan Goddard predicts an "epic battle" over the nomination.