Bert, Britney rival Osama and anthrax on the Web

NEW YORK: What do Osama bin Laden, Britney Spears, Bert from "Sesame

Street" and the heavy metal band Anthrax have in common? They were all

among the top searches on Internet Web sites for the last week, proving yet

again the Internet is nothing if not a mix of serious news alongside a funhouse

of wacky pop culture mania, boy bands and hoaxes.

Web searches for anthrax, the deadly bacteria that has been mailed to some

government and news offices, led many confused surfers to the Web site of the

heavy metal band of the same name. "The boys of 'the good Anthrax,' now in

a position they never expected, have produced a press release attempting to

clear their name (they're considering changing it to Basket Full of

Puppies)," Aaron Schatz, who compiles a list of top search terms on Lycos

Inc.'s search engine, said.

But the music industry won out, at least on the search site Ask Jeeves, which

lets users ask full questions instead of typing in keywords. The top question

posted by Web surfers was not about terrorism or war, but where to find song

lyrics.

The question: "Where can I learn about the bacterial infection

anthrax?" came in second to people looking for the words to N'Sync, Nelly

and Usher songs, the site said on Friday. A very angry Bert -- the one from

Sesame Street -- was also inadvertently pulled into the war. He ended up

circulating on the Web when a pro-bin Laden protester found a Web site called

"Bert is Evil" -- which displayed photos doctored to show the Muppet

next to Hitler, the Ku Klux Klan and now bin Laden.

"It seems that some eager pro-bin Laden protester, searching the

Internet for pictures of his murderous hero, found the Bert is Evil Web site and

neglected to cut the Muppet from the photo," said Schatz. The Bert is Evil

Web site, which has since been taken down by its creator, was the 29th most

popular search term punched into the Lycos site, Schatz said.

Searches for the antibiotic Cipro gained ground as a search term on Lycos,

while gas masks became less popular following reports they would not be

effective in a biological attack. Just below searches for "American

Flag," the ninth most popular search on Lycos, was Britney Spears, who

raced up to No. 10 after another rumor the pop star died in a car crash.

"Like the December 2000 Eminem death rumor, this one was caused by a mock

CNN Web page," said Schatz.

Roughly 10 per cent of searches on Lycos were for bin Laden jokes or

cartoons. There are also searches for bin Laden games. "The most popular is

called Bin Laden Liquors, in which you shoot at a shopkeeper bin Laden taking

hostages in a liquor store," said Schatz. But the strangest search of all,

he said, is the one for Osama bin Laden toilet paper.

ToiletPaperWorld.com is one of the top suppliers of the toilet paper, which

has "Wipe out terrorism" printed around bin Laden's face. "We

have gotten a lot of interest," said Kenn Fischburg, president of

ToiletPaperWorld.com, who said a site called IHateTerrorists.com was his first

customer.