I love this comment from Entertainment Weekly’s Marc Bernardin:

First on my list: kill Mohinder Suresh. Not only does he no longer serve a real purpose; he doesn’t even act like a real character. In the span of a single episode, he went from being a semi-faithful company lapdog to a rebel without a syringe to a slightly more cautious lapdog. And why didn’t he leave Bob’s slimy clutches? Because Molly was still recovering from Papa Parkman’s crazy brain drain. But if the Company isn’t getting her better, then why can’t Suresh take her out of there? She was just as unconscious on his couch. Why? Because the story needs Suresh to be there. That’s the worst kind of storytelling, when you force a character to betray himself to obey the dictates of plot. And once a character does that, he’s useless.

The article as a whole is good too.

There’s also this comment from Jeff Jensen, also of Entertainment Weekly:

 The roller-coaster pacing has grown sluggish, the crazy-cool cliffhangers have gone MIA, and wimpy rookies like Wonderless Twins Maya and Alejandro have stolen away too much screen time. Plus the amnesia for Peter: so cliché. And Matt and Suresh as My Two Dads: seriously? Worst of all, stranding Hiro in a truly unconvincing evocation of feudal Japan has been disastrous.

Megan McArdle has written a great post on school vouchers.  Here are some hightlights:

5) Vouchers destroy the public school system So? Having a public school system seems like a dumb goal to me, but even assuming that the very existence of such a system is somehow a worthy thing to aim for, surely it’s achievement should be a second-order priority. The primary goal, it seems to me, should be educating America’s children to reach their fullest potential; after that goal has been achieved, we can turn our attention to things like having teacher’s unions and public schools.

There’s something very odd about the way that a lot of people treat health care and schooling–as if they were special, magical goods that can only be provided by the government. Yes, these are vital goods that people are ill-equipped to evaluate. But food, shelter, and clothing are even more vital, yet few of us believe that this means we should all get our produce from giant collective farms, or move into public housing projects. We recognize that the way to ensure that everyone has what they need is to give them the money to buy it . . . and, arguably, to have building codes, the FDA, the USDA, and so forth to ensure that consumers are protected from hidden dangers.

…

 6) There aren’t enough private schools Right. Do you realize that in 1995, not a single iPod had been manufactured? That must mean that the iPod I am currently holding in my hand doesn’t actually exist! I’m living a lie . . .

The fact that there are not now enough private schools to educate kids doesn’t mean that there won’t be, if we offer to pay private schools to educate kids.

9) I don’t want my tax dollars used to pay for religious education Waaaaaaah. The fundamentalist down the block doesn’t want his tax dollars used to pay for teaching evolution. I don’t want my tax dollars used for 97% of the things my tax dollars are used for; welcome to representative democracy. And in Catholic schools, where most of the vouchers would be used, the religious education is voluntary; lots of non-Catholic kids go there without being proselytized. If this bothers you that much, we can discuss requiring schools that accept vouchers to make religious education optional.

…

11) There’s no way to assure the quality of private schools Ha. Ha. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Seriously? The problem with private schools is that they can’t match the same level of quality we’ve come to expect from our urban public school system? And what else have you learned in your visit to our planet?

I love the intro to this article about the new Mercedes C-Class:

On average, the angriest e-mails I get are from former Mercedes-Benz owners on the occasion of my saying something nice about the company’s products. I imagine an irate reader pounding away at his keyboard in the wee hours of the morning, with a shiny Lexus in the driveway and a Stuttgart-made knife still quivering in his back.

Allow me to gloss: “I can’t believe you raved about the [insert gaudy hunk of German schteel here]. I bought a Mercedes a few years ago and it was a total piece of [insert colorful metaphor here]. I took it back to the dealer [exponential figure times] and finally got sick of them looking at me like I was speaking a foreign language [English?]. So, when did you go on the company payroll, you toadying, Hun-loving shill?”

It baffled my mind why people would be conned into buying a Mercedes. And here’s why, from the conclusion of the article:

Overall, I’ve got no complaints. In fact, I think this is an excellent automobile and a credit to its breed. The C-class feels precisely like what you would hope, as if Mercedes had invented a shrinking ray and turned it on an S-class.

But then, I don’t own one. The question has never been, can Mercedes blow up the skirts of an auto reviewer like me. Obviously, they make savagely cool and desirable cars. But can those cars be trusted? That is the C-class’ mission. To paraphrase Poe’s raven, Mercedes, take thy knife from out my back.

The Department of Homeland Security needs to be renamed the Department Who Cried Wolf. They are trying to get more money because of the homemade explosive devises are a “rising threat” in United States.  From the Washington Post:

The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI agree that the homemade explosive devices that have wreaked havoc in Iraq pose a rising threat to the United States. But lawmakers and first responders say the Bush administration has been slow to devise a strategy for countering the weapons and has not provided adequate money and training for a concerted national effort.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who told the Senate last month that such bombs are terrorists’ “weapon of choice,” said yesterday at a local meeting that President Bush will soon issue a blueprint for countering the threat of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. Chertoff’s department said in a draft report on IEDs earlier this year that national efforts “lack strategic guidance, are sometimes insufficiently coordinated . . . and lack essential resources.”

IEDs are not terrorists “weapon of choice” they are insurgents weapon of choice. The United States doesn’t need a strategy for countering these weapons because we already have one–good old fashioned law enforcement. We don’t need “strategic guidance” because this isn’t a threat in the United States that needs countered. Come on DHS, why not at least show us some evidence that this is a real problem in the United States first?

Will someone please tell me what the term “price point” means and how exactly it is different from the word “price.” Merriam-Webster defines price as “ the amount of money given or set as consideration for the sale of a specified thing.” It says that it is the amount of money, not the range of money.  

This is because prices are not ranges, they are points. When I walk into a convenience store, the owner doesn’t tell me, “your Diet Coke will cost you between $1.45 and $1.75.” The owner tells me that it costs $1.49. I don’t need to ask, “excuse me, what is the price point of this item.”  I just need to ask, “what is the price of this item.”  The fact that a price is a point and not a range is assumed.

So why do people in tech-related field think they need to talk about the price of an item as the “price point” of the item?  Click here for a Google news search for “price point.”  Note how many  of the articles are tech-related.

Tech people, please stopping using the term “price point” unless you can tell me the difference between the “price” of an item and the “price point of an item.”

Alex Roy recently set the record for driving NY to LA in only 31 hours. Here’s more info and in the video he does a rundown of all of the electronic gadgets he used.

Wired has a very interesting article about Roy’s aborted attempts at the record and his final successful drive.

A man build an life-size X-wing. When they launched it, it torn apart in flight. What caused the explosion? Now we know…

Last week I saw the story about how Obama has quit wearing his American flag lapel pin. Obama’s decision rankled my sensibilities a bit, but as hard as I tried I couldn’t properly express my problems with his explanation. Luckily Eugene Volokh has done it for me:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said he doesn’t tell his wife he loves her any more, because “I love you” has become a substitute for “true love.” The Illinois senator said he hopes to show his love by explaining his ideas about their relationship to her.

Volokh continues:

But the essence is similar: Wearing a flag pin is not supposed to be an explanation or an argument, just as “I love you” is not supposed to be an explanation or an argument. It’s supposed to be a traditional statement of affection, powerful because it’s cliché.If you’re in the sort of relationship in which you’ve never made such a statement–and here flag pin wearing is a little different than “I love you,” since most citizens who love their country don’t routinely say it–then you can indeed show your love in other ways. Returning to the analogy, you hear occasionally of old-fashioned couples who’ve never fallen into the “I love you” habit, but who love each other nonetheless.

Yet if you used to say this and then you stopped, the symbolic message is pretty powerful. And that’s true even though many people say “I love you” without meaning it (just as there are some who wear the flag pin but are just opportunists, not patriots). Even if this abuse of the phrase weakens its symbolism, an outright renunciation of the phrase retains its symbolism just fine.

The American people want a president who loves their country and who expresses that love, at an emotional as well as an intellectual level. For better or worse, a President Spock won’t get elected. Candidate Obama should know that.

This NPR story about two Nickleback songs which sound the same may be one reason why I’m not a fan. I love this quote from Nickleback bassist Mike Kroger

“I think that’s remarkable for someone to notice that there’s a hit quality. If all hits sound the same, then sorry.  When you are a band that has a district style such us, or ACDC, that happens. When you have a distinct style you run the risk of sounding similar.”

That is an awfully silly quote.  Comparing AC/DC and Nickleback is a stretch to say the least. I wish they would have been honest about why their songs sound the same (or may in fact be the same song)–that’s what the computer likes. There are computer programs which analyze music and say which songs will likely be hits. Obviously the computer liked the first Nickleback hit so they recreated it, with different words. Might this be part of the reason CD sales are down?