For the first time since February, Google has updated its Google Trends database, allowing me to give you an up-to-date look at our nation’s most important issues–or at least its most important internet searches, which we all know is the same thing.
War
Iraq: blue / Star Wars: yellow / Halo: red / World of Warcraft: green
When it comes to war, this easily generated chart shows fantasy war has been a more popular Google search this year than real war, except in late April and early May when the “Iraq” search term (blue) claimed fleeting victory over “Star Wars,” “Halo” and “World of Warcraft.” My guess is that kids were kicking the video game habit for a moment while researching end-of-semester term papers on foreign affairs disasters. If you run the search yourself and look at the localized stats, you’ll see that the only cities where “Iraq” won were Washington, DC (of course) and Columbus, Ohio. Will somebody from Columbus explain? On the other end of the scale, Salt Lake City dominated each fictional war category. But then, I’m not sure Salt Lakers consider Star Wars to be fiction. (Mormons believe Native Americans descended from the 12 tribes of Israel, and before that, Jedi Masters). Anyway, combining all three fantasy wars leaves Iraq totally dominated. As for other real wars, the “Global War on Terror” doesn’t even rank, but I’m not sure that bothers me seeing how GWOT is only slightly less fictional than World of Warcraft.
Climate Change
Global Warming: blue / Hummer: red / Air Conditioning: yellow / Al Gore: green
As of late July, after dominating the field for months, “global warming” has fought “Hummer” to a bitter draw. Meanwhile, “air conditioning” was lying in wait during the cool spring months, only to crank up in May and blow past “global warming” in June in a cloud of CO2 emissions from dirty coal plants in the sweltering South. “Al Gore” came to the rescue when he announced a surprise Live Earth concert on July 7th, but within a week he had dropped to the bottom of the pack. (Al: We need more concerts. Can you play tambourine on a tour with Willie?)
The Presidential Election
Hillary Clinton: light blue / Barack Obama: red / Rudy Giuliani: green / Fred Thompson: yellow / Ron Paul: dark blue
The internet has spoken: Ron Paul will be the next president. Everyone else might as well pack up and go home, because this 71-year-old libertarian from Lake Jackson, Texas is on fire with the power of bored IT workers Googling him on lunchbreak. And Digging him, and searching for him on Technorati, and demanding him on Eventful and befriending him on MySpace and pumping him on Meetup and submitting more questions to him than any other candidate during his rockstar appearance in Silicon Valley at Google Talks. Pretty much anywhere you look in cyberspace, he’s kicking ass. Nevermind that he wants to abolish the IRS, the Department of Ed and the EPA. They’re already irrelevant. . .
The Role of Government
Government: blue / Google: red
This is why Silicon Valley rules America.
