THE tour manager of BlackEyed Peas has been charged with assault a few hours after he allegedly gave celebrity blogger Perez Hilton a black eye outside a Toronto nightclub.

Hilton had sent the following message to microblogging site Twitter after the attack: "I'm in shock. I need the police ASAP. Please come to the SoHo Metropolitan Hotel now. Please."

“ONCE upon a time, owning a handphone indicated wealth...” That time was circa 1991 and the place was The Mall, KL.

It was here that, on a short visit from a rural area in the East Coast, I saw a young guy going up an escalator.
His right hand gripped a thick handphone with a long aerial – a device that cost no less than RM3,000 then. The expression on his face was of supreme confidence – and he sure knew of the many envious eyes focused on him and his gadget.

With almost 19 million hits since it went public, it is Number One when it comes to local socio-political blogs maintained by individuals, according to statistics charted by Alexa.com.Heck, it probably is the genuine top blog in the world by any past or present Head of State, with non-ghost written postings.

Are they really a significant new force in national politics, or are they just overhyped and overrated?

There are certainly many sceptics of the SoPo blogosphere’s level of influence.

These are people who have doubts as to whether the blogs really make much impact in shaping the population’s view.

And it doesn’t matter how well the posts are written, nor the number of visitors and participants.