Amidst all the talk of gay marriage and stem cell ads and what will no doubt be an abundance of Halloween parties this weekend, there's this bit of knowledge: this could also be the weekend that the World Series is decided, and BlogPulse isn't making any predictions...yet. Although the Tigers obviously aren't meeting earlier expectations:

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 03:59 PM

Oh, there's pre-election consternation galore, what with a Daily Kos alert (today's No. 12 most-cited blog post) about more voting irregularities and voter-purging here in the Buckeye State (I'm voting absentee next week, just because). And MSNBC's Keith Olberman is working his way up the most-blogged-about personality list for his blistering attacks of late (today's No. 2 top blog post) on the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Let the Series begin
But it's the Tigers vs. the Cards in the 2006 World Series starting this weekend, and a BlogPulse trend graph...well, it's got as many clues as anyone else.

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 04:15 PM

Just when you thought Lance Armstrong's record-breaking seven Tour de France wins couldn't be upstaged, along comes Floyd Landis to take his corner of it. His come-from-behind win, coupled with a bad hip, created more than 2,700 search results for Landis and placed him at No. 4 among the most-blogged-about people today. "Floyd!" exclaims the blogger at Katy's Theme Party, while a grateful blogger says, "my heart soared this morning." Another's reaction: "awesome."

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 04:21 PM

OK, it's old news, but it still has soccer fans buzzing. Video of Zinedine Zidane, the French player thrown out of Sunday's World Cup finals for head-butting Italian player Marco Materazzi, is today's most-shared link (via YouTube.com) among bloggers bloggers, and Zidane himself worked his way to No. 2 spot on the list of most-blogged-about people. Lots of the discussion is understandably in French. He was thrown out of the game, but won the equivalent of the best player award. Go figure. The BBC's coverage of the incident is today's No. 3 most-cited news story.

If it works in sports...
Seems that "bring it on," in-your-face head-butting attitude is apparent elsewhere, as the conservative PowerLine blog (today's No. 20 top blog post) passes along a new "Kill, Don't Capture" kind of thinking for the war on terror. (Obviously, it's the kind of thinking that puts us in such great stead with our allies?).

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 11:52 AM

It was neck and neck right up to the buzzer, but the Miami Heat walked off Tuesday with the 2006 NBA Championship trophy by defeating the Dallas Mavericks 95-92. A BlogPulse trend graph shows the neck-and-neck trail of online discussion about the two teams...right up until the winner was declared.

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 09:52 AM

According to Internet users who are sharing thoughts about the World Cup online, teams from Germany, England, Brazil and Italy are generating the most online buzz and fans are talking about Germany, Brazil, the United States and Italty with the most passion.

While the World Cup games play out on the international stage from Germany, the BlogPulse team has been capturing online discussion about the World Cup to provide added perspective and insights about the soccer phenomenon.

According to an analysis of 44,000 English-language online messages (48% from boards, 45% from blogs, 7% from Usenet) analyzed from May 1-June 16:

Leaders by Group: Group B (England, Trinidad and Tobago, England, Sweden and Paraguay) is generating the most buzz (39%), followed by Group A (Germany, Poland, Ecuador, Costa Rica) at 34%; and Group F (Brazil, Australia, Japan, Croatia) at 29%. Next in descending order: Groups E, C, G, D and H. These numbers were analyzed before last weekend's matches. The gender breakdown of the pool: 62% male, 10% female; 20% gender cannot be determined.

Leaders by country: Based on the sheer volume of buzz, World Cup teams from Germany, England, Brazil and Italy are generating the most discussion.

Most passionate posters: Countries that are creating the most emotional online discussions, as gauged by negative-positive sentiments discovered in postings, are England (50% of posts indicate negative/positive emotion), Brazil (46%), the United States (33%), Italy (32%) and the Netherlands (30%).

The most popular online news sources for World Cup news, as cited in blogs, are Handelsblatt.com, the BBC News Web site and Sports Illustrated.

And while it stil hasn't reached the peak of online saturation as the 2006 Super Bowl (2.5% of all blog posts on the day of the big game), buzz about the World Cup spiked at 2.25% of all blog posts on June 9, opening weekend. Look for it to creep back upwards again as the July 9 championship game approaches. Who will the last two teams be?

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 01:22 PM

White House advisor Karl Rove's escape from scrutiny -- and Pittsburgh Steelers' quarterback Ben Rothliesberger's sudden exposure to it -- top the blogosphere today. Rove is today's 2nd-most-discussed personalty (Big Ben ranks No. 3) because, respectively, the former is not being charged with a crime in the federal investigation of who leaked a CIA agent's name to the press and the latter is being charged with reckless behavior for crashing his motorcycle and not wearing a helmet. Six of the day's key phrases refer to news of Rove's clearnance, while Rothliesberger's injuries are starting debates (again) about helmet safety laws (and common sense).

We'll drink to that! (or not)
In a morning e-mail, a colleagued pointed out that Budweiser's sponsorship of the World Cup soccer championships (covered at AdRants, among others) is getting some definite "reaction," especially from those offended that the host country is one of the world's renowed brewers of fine beers, many of which are not on sale at the games. A BlogPulse search for the words "Budweiser" and "World Cup" produce some interesting results, including this MySpace review of a Czech flavor test. Assessments included "quite good" and the pithy "I don't know how to say. It is missing ... um, yes. I miss the, uh, typical taste of beer." This Bud's for you...

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 01:58 PM

What keeps us entertained? What keeps us engaged? TV and sports, that's what, and a BlogPulse Trend graph today compares buzz about three major events: one past, one recently past and one future: The Super Bowl, the "American Idol" season (hence the weekly peaks) and the FIFA World Cup soccer championship games, which kick off on Friday:

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 12:13 PM

Strange and curious sightings in the blogosphere today...

From the sports desk
It's obvious that blogging is a worldwide phenomenon when there's far more buzz for the upcoming World Cup soccer championships in Germany than the ongoing NBA championships in the states and the French Open tennis matches in France. A BlogPulse trend graph shows the way:



Suddenly, the eBay grilled cheese sandwich makes sense
Popping up at No. 12 today among top links is an ad, obviously, for the Jesus Pan, which allows culinary believers to cook the image of Jesus Christ right into whatever they're fryin' up. WWJF indeed?

Paint With Numbers, literally
Another popular link today is OneThousandPaintings.com, which allows you to buy from Sala, a Swiss painter, an original painting (blue on white) of all the numbers, apparently, from 1-1,000. Discussion ranges from "cool idea" to "a sucker born every minute." He paints. You decide.

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 03:24 PM

The networks were popping yesterday with news that an audtiotape purportedly from Osama bin Laden was played on Al Jazeera TV (today's second-most-cited link)...offering another attack or a truce, depending. (Sorry, dude). But not everyone's convinced the very bad man that President George Bush promised to capture a loooooong time ago is even still alive. "Dead man offers phony truce," is how Little Green Footballs interpreted the news (today's No. 29 top blog post). Maybe he's running on the Democratic ticket, wonders American Digest? "The end of the world is nearer to this," says Drink This blogger of the truce offer.

Files, please, asks DOJ? Google says "no"
BoingBoing has an update (No. 17 top blog post) on the Department of Justice's request for a million random Google search records (today's No. 2 top news story) so that the government can defend the legality of its Child Online Protection Act (AOL, Yahoo! and MSN apparently complied). "Big Brother Wants Your Clickstream" is the analysis from the Business 2.0 blog. John Battelle's Search Blog look at the big-picture phenomenon as more and more personal data goes online. (Here's a blog-initiated tool: Try Outer Court's Patriot Search instead!)

And you thought driving while dialing was risky?
Imagine driving while zapping killer aliens or maneuvering treacherous battlefields? A new Nissan concept car, (the subject of today's No. 13 top blog post) has an Xbox 360 built in, reports 999 Today. It'll project Gotham Racing 3 and allow players to use the car's steering wheel and pedals (while parked, of course) to manipulate the game.

Passings...
Singer Wilson Pickett, today's sixth-burstiest person, is being remembered as a soulful crooner on news that he died this week at age 64 of a heart attack. The singer was famous for "Mustang Sally" and "In the Midnight Hour," (an hour that's now dark, eulogizes The Moderate Voice).

A Brief History...
The blogger at Defective Yetti is No. 2 among all posts today for a brief history of the Iraq War if it were written in text-message format from the perspective at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Attention, sports fans
The Super Bowl takes place on Feb. 5, the winter Olympics begin Feb. 10 in Italy. How much excitement is building? A BlogPulse trend graph shows the way:

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 11:12 AM

It's apparent that blogging has matured quickly now that Dan Gillmor, former technology writer for the San Jose Mercury News, has now established the Center for Citizen Media (the content of today's No. 2 most-cited blog post). The center will have ties to both UC/Berkeley and Harvard and will promote the "emergent grassroots media" movement, says Gillmor.

Judicial smackdown on ID
In its first official legal test, the theory of Intelligent Design took a big hit from today's 25th burstiest person, U. S. District Court Judge John Jones, who ruled yesterday that teaching intelligent design in science classes violates the separation of church and state (today's No. 6 top news story)...and he did so with some harsh words for its proponents. "Breathtaking inanity," in fact, was his description of the former Dover, Pa., school board's decision to offer intelligent design as science. And it resonated:



The "I" Word
We're not making this up. In today's No. 12 top blog post from Think Progress, conservative scholars who appeared this week on Diane Rehm's NPR talk show hinted that President Bush is a candidate for impeachment (there it is...the "I" word) if he continues his presidential power-grabbing ways and wiretaps his own citizens. BlogsforBush uses the "but Democrats did it too!" excuse. But Think Progress is also today's top blog post, for pointing out that former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter kept judicial oversight in the mix and specifically ruled out domestic spying during their administrations.

In a similar vein, U.S. District Court Judge James Robertson is today's burstiest person for resigning yesterday from the court that's supposed to oversee/approve domestic spying requests, and he did so in protest of the President's executive order that OKs domestic spying by the NSA (today's top news story).

From the Spotlight Blog...
Today's BlogPulse Spotlight examines the reasons why Johnny Damon is today's third most-cited personality in the blogosphere, now that he's jumped the Red Sox ship and joined the Yankees. Also jumping off, but this time for good: Firefly-Serenity.

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 10:30 AM

Democrat Howard Dean is today's third most-blogged-about personality and retired Gen. Wesley Clark's op-ed piece in the New York Times is today's No. 21 most-shared link...and both are getting attention for offering their own ideas and strategies for winding down the invasion of Iraq intelligently and with as little life lost as possible. Conservative bloggers, including Captain's Quarters and Michelle Malkin (among today's top blog posts) don't like Howard; Malkin resorts to "Howard the Coward" name-calling in her defense of endless "stay the course" lectures from the White House. This, of course, in the week when the government received failing grades from the 9/11 Commission on instituting recommendations to keep the country safe (today's 15th most-cited news story).

Movements afoot
Tidbits from here and there: more TV shows are now available as iPod downloads, reports Engadget (today's No. 6 top blog post), and an University of Kansas religion professor is stirring the pot by proposing to teach Intelligent Design as part of a religion class on "mythologies." And guess what the 2005 word of the year is? Podcast. (Last year's was "blog.")

On the gridiron
The National Football Season is getting to the stage of being interesting, so we plotted a BlogPulse trend graph comparing blog buzz about the division-leading AFC teams....

...and buzz about their division-leading NFC counterparts...



We admit it; we're biased...go Bengals!

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 11:16 AM

Like Boston fans a year earlier, the Sox fans in Chicago are celebrating a long-awaited World Series Championship in a four-game sweep that included today's burstiest phrase: the longest World Series game ever. Go Sox!

Conservatives are also claiming victory, undoubtedly, with today's news that Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers has withdrawn her name from the judge pool. Given what many claimed was a lack of a paper trail for Miers, critics and reporters nonetheless uncovered one in the past few weeks (today's 9th most-shared link among bloggers). BlogPulse's trend graph capabilities captured the chatter about confirmation vs. withdrawal since the day Miers' name was first announced:



A new Google thing?
For a brief time Thursday, a project called Google Base (today's No. 3 link, although the site's not actually working now) was live on the Internet, and a number of bloggers, including ars technica, got a sneak peak at this one-stop content collection shop, or whatever it's going to be. Citations linked to the site included plenty of foreign commentary.

Reporting under fire
Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin has taken on USA Today for altering a photo of Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. And in reporting of another kind, the blogger at The Fourth Rail is asking for donations so he can be embedded with the Marines to cover operations in Iraq's Anbar Province. To circle back to the content of that aforementioned USA Today article, will the Fourth Rail be invited back in 10 years?

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 10:03 AM

The past few days have seen some inspiring performances by athletes....Tiger Woods' win at the British Open, Lance Armstrong's pursuit of a seventh Tour de France medal, and 15-year-old Michelle Wie's (unsuccessful) attempt to break into the world of men's golf.

Just as he is on his bike, Armstrong is leading the pack, as this BlogPulse Trend graph shows:



Armstrong also leads in BlogPulse search results (12,182), with Woods in second place (11,816 results) and Wie in third (1,364).

Other newsmakers
An outspoken Muslim named Irshad Manji is making waves in London and elsewhere for her unorthodox views of her religion; it's why some have dubbed her "Osama's worst nightmare." Yay! says The Conjecturer.

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 09:29 AM

First, you've gotta give credit to the Boston Red Sox, the come-from-behind, what-curse? baseball team whose win over the New York Yankees this week earned a whopping 16 of the top 20 key phrases in Thursday's BlogPulse results. Making it to the No. 3 spot among the most blogged-about people was player Johnny Damon, one of many Sox team members who sealed the win; Sox owner Larry Lucchino made it to the burstiest people list at No 2. Says everyone in Boston (and New York, for that matter): Bring on the Cardinals!

From baseball, we delve directly into genealogy and Thursday's third most trafficked link: Bush Relatives for Kerry. Seems Dubya's distant cousins, most of whom have never met the Prez, have taken family matters into their own hands on a web site where they explain why they're voting for his opponent in the upcoming Presidential election ("because blood is thinner than oil!"). Speaking of cousins, are Bush and Kerry really ninth cousins once removed? That family tree appears as No. 7 among Thursday's top links.

From there, head on down to Link No. 29, What Kerry Stands For. It's one college student's attempt to add a dose of levity to the world of fabricated, hyped journalism. And it's worth a few laughs, too.

First dodgeball restirctions, now this. If you had any hankering to put on your witch costume and go trick-or-treating at a school in Pullayup, Washington, you can forget it. The district's canceled Halloween celebrations because they distract from learning, take up too much time and might be offensive to real Wiccans (witches). That's why spokeswoman Karen Hansen is among Thursday's burstiest people, and so it skeptical parent Silas Macon.

TODAY'S TREND GRAPH: Name-calling, political labels, smear tactics. Call the practice what you want. Here's how it looks.

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 02:13 PM

How about those Red Sox? Bloggers who were tuned into the Yankees vs. Red Sox showdown were active this week, wowed not only by Sox pitcher Curt Schilling but by the team's record-breaking come-from-behind wins in the American league playoffs.

As for the youth movement, Nickelodeon news host Linda Ellerbee jumped to the top of BlogPulse's top people based on the results of Nickelodeon's mock youth vote. Noting that Nick's kids have correctly picked the Presidential winner in the last four elections, Nick News announced that Kerry won this year's contest with 57% of the vote; incumbent President Bush got 44%. (Although one astute child observed that in 2000, the kids chose Bush, while Al Gore actually won the popular vote).

On the adult political front, some of us wonder why and how Pat Robertson continues to be sought out as an "expert," but that's another essay. His comments to CNN newswoman Paula Zahn are drawing fire from all sides -- Democrats who are using it as more proof that the Bush Administration rushed into the war in Iraq unprepared and misugded, and Republican officials claiming Robertson obviously didn' t hear, mean or recall what he said he did.

Today's 14th burstiest phrase is vague ("Bush Administration and the failure of Congress to gain release") but piqued the curiosity nonetheless. It hints to a CIA post 9/11 report, one that's been completed since June but whose release is being delayed (conveniently?) until after the Nov. 2 election. The fullest reference is at W. David Stephenson's homeland security blog.

And whether a military draft is a forced issue or not, it's out there, and today's 18th top link is to EnjoyThe Draft.com. Yes, that's Jenna and Barbara in military fatigues.

TREND GRAPH OF THE DAY: Can you guess how many hurricanes Florida endured recently? And when Mount St. Helens started acting up again? Mother Nature tells the story.

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 11:09 AM

It's not all politics and post-politics in Beantown. If it's early August, it's also the middle of baseball season, which is why the trade of Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra has Sox fans all abuzz. Good riddance, say some, to a "weird duck." Others wonder, what were the Sox thinking? For some, at least, all the talk about baseball has them talking less about....

...Politics. And judging by BlogPulse entries in these post-convention days, politics is still hot and will remain so until November, whether it's an interview with the diner owner who re-fed the Kerry-Edwards bus after it stopped at Wendy's, or coverage of former First Lady Nancy Reagan's flat-out refusal to participate (or allow her late husband's memory to be mentioned) in anything related to the upcoming Republican National Convention. Among BlogPulse's key people, Democratic candidate John Kerry retains his lead over President George Bush, even though the convention created only a small bump for Kerry (if any) in polls...depending on which poll, and which bump.

Meanwhile, the Bush campaign is taking heat for asking the race of an Arizona newspaper photographer before giving her credentials to cover a campaign appearance by Vice President Dick Cheney. And in case you didn't know, anyone who appears at a Bush-Cheney event must get a ticket and sign an oath supporting Bush, which could explain the lack of protests at such events.

And on the "Oh, no...here comes another political movie front," here come Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the bizarre minds behind Comedy Central's South Park cartoon. This time, though, they're preparing to release Team America, a movie that promises to spoof everyone equally on the issue of America's war on terror. Or terrorism. Whatever. And right before Election Day, to boot. This one might make Stan and Cartman look like wussies...

TREND GRAPH OF THE DAY: Anything That Rates. What's on blogger's minds? High interest rates? Unemployment rates? Mortgate rates? Find out now...

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 03:34 PM