Pecvniate obedivnt omnia

Word comes today of a private buyer grabbing up an Airbus A380 superjumbo jetliner... for his own personal, private use.

An AFP report says the final total for the purchase will be as much as 450 million dollars after the airliner is customized to fit the buyer's specifications.

Just to give you a sense of scale, the Airbus A380 can carry 840 passengers:



So let's say this notable Airbus aficionado brings along 20 friends on a trip, along with three pilots and eight attendants serving drinks and fulfilling what are likely quite indulgent tastes, here's how close they come to filling the passenger capacity:



But I won't criticize this person, as much as my infographics suggest otherwise. For all I know, this wealthy person could be flying orphans to receive needed medical care in faraway lands for free. How noble!

Pecvniate obedivnt omnia. Loosely translated, all things obey money.

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Whatever happened to "Tippecanoe and Tyler too"?

I guess she thinks Celine Dion will be as helpful to her as it was James Cameron.

That's right, Hillary Clinton -- junior senator from New York and erstwhile contender for the Democratic presidential nomination -- ended her quest for a campaign song today.

The lucky song's name? "You and I." Advance to the 49-second mark to see one of the candidates for Leader of the Free World bobbing and swaying to what I believe is an excerpt from the song.



All of this was part of the Web 2.0-steeped efforts to motivate her digital base.

Color me unimpressed. First, it doesn't seem as though the process of gathering netizen input and making a decision on the song was organic as the video would suggest. Second, who picks Celine Dion for a campaign song?

But Sen. Clinton is only the latest in a line of lame campaign song choices:

- The 2004 presidential campaign saw incumbent President Bush select country outfit Brooks and Dunn for a pseudo-stirring, patriotic anthem, "Only in America." Sen. John Kerry chose a decent Boss tune ("No Surrender"), but by associating it with his languishing campaign did it a disservice, so I label it a flop.

-- Bush the 43rd co-opted Tom Petty (for shame) and Van Hagar in 2000, along with *shudder* Billy Ray Cyrus. Al Gore, winner of the popular vote, did the hippest thing since inventing the Internet by picking BTO's "You Ain't See Nothing Yet."

-- Kansas native Bob Dole bastardized Sam and Dave's "Soul Man" in his failed attempt to unseat Bill Clinton in 1996.

-- The Gipper used Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A.," thinking the ode to America's disaffected Vietnam veterans would be perfect for Reagan/Bush 1984. The Boss later asked the campaign to not use the song furthermore. At the same time, one of the worst campaigns known to man -- Mondale in 1984 -- was blaring Neil Diamond's "Coming To America" (I think Tom Tancredo could win my vote based on irony if he picked this as his campaign song).

Whatever happened to "Tippecanoe and Tyler too"?

UPDATE: Sen. Clinton has put herself into the allusionary shoes of fictional sociopath Tony Soprano in a parody of "The Sopranos" finale. I'm starting to think Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" would have made a better campaign song than anything in the discography of Celine Dion. Here's the video:

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What a wonderful Wiz he was

I'm generally a big fan of anyone who can take the complex or daunting and turn it into something accessible and understandable to those who need to know. Don Herbert was one of those people.

If that name doesn't immediately register in your mind as recognizable, you'll likely to better know Herbert as "Mr. Wizard," the host of the kid-friendly science shows that laid the groundwork for folks like Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Like many in my generation, I discovered "Mr. Wizard" in his later days on cable's Nickelodeon. "Mr. Wizard's World," I'm told, was the longest-running show on Nickelodeon.

One would like to think he had the effect on children and their interest in science that the space program and NASA have had over the years.

Whether or not that's the case, Herbert was a veteran of the Second World War, flying B-24 bombers for the Army Air Corps and taking part in the invasion of Italy. That alone gets him a spot of honor in the history books.

Here's to you, Don Herbert!

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Alas, Tony Soprano, I knew him well

I was reminded earlier today of an excerpt from "Macbeth":

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.*

There you have it — the "Sopranos" series finale, summed up by the David Chase of the 17th Century, William Shakespeare.

It was the ultimate anticlimax for pay-TV's ultimate antihero. It was an ending meant to simultaneously please and embitter all viewers.

But instead of pondering what it all means, I can only wonder what the ending of HBO's showcase series will mean for the world.

Assuming the water-cooler talk continues on through the week (thanks in some part to those catching up with the finale on DVR or TiVo), productivity in workplaces worldwide will either see a big boost or — far more likely — turn their collective attentions to The Next Big Thing.

Again, I constantly remind myself that a small percentage of Americans have ever watched HBO beyond the realm of big-ticket boxing, let alone a single episode of any series... and that the diehard "Sopranos" aficionados represent a small enclave of Americana.

And if you've read this far into this post, you must have something to say about how Casa Soprano closed up shop for good. Email me or comment back on how you thought the series should have ended.

At least you can stop wondering if Furio or the Russian are coming back.

UPDATE: The ratings are in... "The Sopranos" series finale, despite being available to only 30 million households nationwide, bested all of the programs on Fox, ABC and CBS for the ratings week.

Of course, the Don of New Jersey has always been obsessed with ducks, but in this case it's the Peacock Network that did better than the HBO series' swan song. The premiere of NBC's "America's Got Talent" came in at No. 1.

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Can you be more specific

Don't you just hate losing on a technicality?

That's exactly what happened to a group of attorneys this week when a military judge threw out the charges against a man held at Guantanamo Bay on suspicion of terror-related activities.

As The Associated Press reported, Omar Khadr, a 20-year-old who was captured five years ago in Afghanistan, is on the receiving end of an edict in the 2006 Military Commissions Act — war trials at Gitmo are only authorized for "unlawful" combatants. Khadr, the AP says, was classified as an enemy combatant without the preceding "unlawful" tag.

Some might see it as the equivalent of having the right answer on "Jeopardy!" but not phrasing it in the form of the question.

"I'll take legal blunders for $400, Alex."

I'm well-acquainted with the intricacy of the English language, and I imagine most people have little to no desire to stand in the position of making sure these minor, bureaucratic matters are properly addressed.

But this isn't a daytime game show. This time we're talking war. This time we're dealing with people's lives and national security.

It's tempting to immediately side with the hard-working attorneys devoted to these cases. One of them — Marine Col. Dwight Sullivan — said of the judge's decision to dismiss charges, "It's the latest demonstration that this newest system just does not work," according to AP.

I chalk this one up to an all-too-rare case of the establishment not having its ducks in a row. But give them some credit: Some of those detainees may have posed some form of threat to America or American interests had they not been captured and held.

Say what you will about how they have been treated individually — that's an entirely different story. If we are going to take this war and the thousands of American lives lost while waging it seriously, the taxpayer-funded legal teams charged with bringing these men to justice need to dot every I, cross every T and be far more attentive to details than this news suggests.

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