If we are what we Google, then Google Hot Trends —an hourly rundown of search terms “that experience sudden surges in popularity”—is the Web’s best cultural barometer. Here’s a sampling of today’s top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 10 a.m.)
“4 Calvin Klein billboard”— Depending on their tastes, New Yorkers have been either titillated or disgusted by a new Calvin Klein billboard depicting three men and a woman in a configuration that suggests nothing more or less than group sex. With its effective censor-baiting, the CK “orgy” ad could be this week’s unauthorized Woody Allen billboard .
“16 Perito Moreno Glacier”— Opponents of Obama’s controversial carbon cap-and-trade plan are jumping all over news that Argentina’s massive Perito Moreno glacier continues to grow in the face of global warming. (They’re less thrilled by this report of glaciers disappearing from Ugandan mountaintops.) Scientists are unsure why Perito Moreno continues to thrive when most of the world’s glaciers are melting at an alarming rate .
“34 Antonio Castro” —The missteps of world leaders’ progeny are always a hit with the Internet; now Fidel Castro’s 42-year-old son, Antonio, is getting the Jenna Bush treatment . For eight months, Castro carried out an online affaire d’amour via instant message with a beautiful Colombian woman named “Claudia.” But? Turned out Claudia was Luis Dominquez, a Miami-based prankster who wanted to “shatter the myth of [Castro’s] impenetrable security system,” according to the Miami Herald .
