More than 17,000 people had joined the social media effort aimed and removing real estate mogul and 2012 potential GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump as driver of the Indianapolis 500 pace car on the event’s 100th anniversary. Although support was slow at first, recent media reports of the group’s creation by Indianapolis attorney Michael Wallack produced a swell of attention Wednesday.

Speculation early Thursday was that officials with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway would be removing Trump as the official pace car driver, but once the news was made official, Trump said he was dumping the event because it could interfere with his other obligations.

A new pace car driver has not yet been announced. Fans are pushing several other celebrities as well as U.S. military personnel as possible replacements. Although a few have mentioned other politicians, there does not appear to be widespread support for anyone associated with politics.

Racing fans took exception to the selection of Trump after the New Yorker began voicing strong criticism of the certificate of live birth produced by President Barack Obama. In addition to the Facebook effort, a few religious-based organization such as an Indiana group of Baptist ministers had come out against Trump’s participation, voicing their opinion that the attacks against Obama’s birth are racially motivated.

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Trump spokesman Michael Cohen told the IndyStar. “Donald Trump doesn’t have a racist bone in his body.”

Cohen contends that those who created the Facebook page and other movements against Trump were all Obama supporters.

“Social Justice Begins in the Womb!”

That’s one of several Twitter/Facebook status updates available for use from a brand-new anti-abortion rights website called Abolish Abortion, whose aim is to mobilize young citizens to demonstrate their support for House Republicans’ measure to block federal funds from Planned Parenthood.

The site is run by Students for Life of America and sponsored by the same coalition of student-led anti-abortion rights groups responsible for the website Expose Planned Parenthood. Among the groups involved include: Live Action, Human Life Alliance, Susan B. Anthony List, 40 Days for Life, Americans United for Life, Stand True, Abort 73, National Right to Life, Pro-Life Action League, National Right to Life, the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform and EMC Frontline Pregnancy Centers.

On the Abolish Abortion site, many of these organizations advertise job openings, but most of these are internships that are either unpaid or offer a minimal stipend.

Users are encouraged to spend the next 10 days — leading up to when the Continuing Resolution to fund the federal government expires and Congress will be forced to agree on a spending bill or shut the government down until a compromise is reached — constantly updating their Twitter and Facebook feeds with anti-Planned Parenthood messages using their own creativity or samples provided by the organization.

Examples of social media status updates gathered on the Abolish Abortion site*:

“Today is International Women’s Day. What are you doing to expose the truth about genercide [sic] and targeting of women for abortion worldwide?”

“Planned Parenthood commits 300,000+ abortions every year. That’s 40% of their clinic income. 300,000 innocent lives taken.”

Users are also encouraged to donate their Facebook pages — allowing the group to update for them.

Last week, Students for Life of America announced a YouTube video contest, calling on high school- and college-age students to create YouTube videos that describe why Planned Parenthood should be defunded. The contest was supposed to end on Monday at midnight but was extended through Thursday at midnight. The advertised grand prize is $1,000. The contest description on studentsforlife.org does not specify any restrictions on what is depicted in the video entries.

View entering videos on YouTube by searching for the tag “2011 Expose Planned Parenthood Video Contest”.

And for the more luddite young anti-abortion rights activists, Students for Life Executive Director Kristan Hawkins, who announced the media campaign at a teleconference Monday, suggested calling or e-mailing lawmakers, while 40 Days for Life director David Bereit told supporters they should consider fasting for the 40-day duration of Lent, which begins Wednesday.

*Correction: We previously referred to these status messages as samples offered by Students for Life of America and ExposePlannedParenthood.com. Instead they are examples of people’s individual posts.

Mr. Neely, an Army veteran who spent six months at the prison in 2002, sent messages to one of the freed men, Shafiq Rasul, and was astonished when Mr. Rasul replied. Their exchanges sparked a face-to-face meeting, arranged by the BBC, which will be shown on Tuesday. Mr. Neely, who has served as the president of the Houston chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War, says his time at Guantánamo now haunts him, and has granted confessional-style interviews about the abuses he says he witnessed there. In a message to Mr. Rasul, Mr. Neely apologized for his role in the imprisonment.

Gavin Lee, a BBC correspondent, learned about the Facebook messages from Mr. Rasul, who lives in Britain, and thought the situation was incredible. Mr. Lee tracked down Mr. Neely — on Facebook, naturally — and asked, “would you consider meeting face to face?”

“He thought about it and he said, ‘I would love to,’ ” Mr. Lee recalled last week. “I would love to apologize in person.”

This is happening tonight on BBC World News America.

The effort’s communications director explains that the move is a form of counter-pressure to balance escalation proponents:

“It’s a vigil, and the reason we chose a vigil is because a lot of our members support Obama,” Communications Director Reva Patwardhan told me in a phone interview. “A lot of progressives support Obama, and we actually think that of all the people who could possibly be president he’s the most likely to do the right thing. But he’s going to need a lot of public support in order to push him in that direction, and the fact is that he’s actually considering an array of options for what he’s going to do in Afghanistan. The commander in Afghanistan, General [Stanley] McChrystal, has asked for 45,000 more troops. There’s a huge amount of pressure to give him that. We’re asking [Obama] not to give in to that pressure.”

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The House is voting on a historic clean energy bill today. Have you called your representative about it? http://bit.ly/aWcDK

Twitter has been burning up with conservative and Republican messages telling followers how to call to ask their representatives for “no” votes on the bill. This is notable because the Obama account has more than 1.5 million followers. The far-more-active Republican accounts can’t compete. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), for example, who has been telling followers to call in to the House switchboard, only has 10,476 followers. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has been pushing a call-in campaign and whose Tweets are probably better-covered in the media than any other politicians, has only a third as many followers as Obama.

President Ahmadinejad took decisive steps and basically turned off the Internet in Iran for about an entire day. His action, blocked access to information being distributed by the opposition party and the coordination of the cyber revolt activities. The social outrange was collected, focused and targeted into a political weapon and the enabling technology was the Internet. Many find it hard to believe a 500,000 node DDoS attack army could be assembled that fast without prior planning. Some have speculated that outsiders may have had a hand in the rapid assembly of the cyber capabilities used in the post election cyber attacks. Given the massive distributed sources of attack, it is hard to believe this could have been pulled together in a few short hours.

Regime-attacked sites include Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, BeDo, Friendster, Hi5, LinkedIn (groups), Ning, Classmates and Reunion.

· I have come due to concerns of current political and social conditions – to defend the rights of the nation
· I have come to improve Irans International relations
· I have come to tell the world and return to Iran our pride, our dignity, our future
· I have come to bring to Iran a FUTURE of FREEDOM, of HOPE, of fulfilment
· I have come to represent the poor the helpless the hungry
· I have come to be ACCOUNTABLE to you my people and to this world
· Iran must participate in FAIR elections, it is a matter of national importance
· I have come to you because of the corruption in Iran
· 25% inflation means IGNORANCE – THIEVING – CORRUPTION – where is the wealth of my nation?
· What have you done with $300 BILLION in last 4 years – where is the wealth of the nation?
· The next Gov of Iran will be chosen by the people
· Why do all our young want to leave this country?
· I know of no creation who places HIMSELF ahead of 20 million of the nation
· We are Muslims – what is happening in Iran Government is a sin
· This Gov is not what Imam Khomeini wanted for Iran – #Irane lection I will change all this – This is the SEA of GREEN

Notice that one about President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad not being what “Imam Khomeini wanted for Iran.” Moussavi’s hacking at all sources of Ahmadinejad’s legitimacy.

Everybody is peaceful and quiet – everybody is wearing black – the number of people is unbelievable – SEA OF GREEN

S/he says s/he’s going to report back when the march ends. Please. Please. Listen to their demo.