Good news: The current “presenters” (or hosts, as we call them stateside) of Top Gear will remain on the current show and will not be hosting the new show.

Good news: Adam Carolla is the first host chosen for the series.

Bad news: The show will be aired through NBC.

The only choice that would be worse than that would be Fox, which would somehow turn it into a wretched NASCAR infomercial. The problem isn’t NBC so much as it is all the commercial networks and their financial model, though lately NBC can ruin just about any good idea. Commercial television networks only create content that’s worth watching to keep us glued through the commercials. The BBC, on the other hand, is funded independently by the British government. They have no commercial breaks. They have no allegiance to a manufacturer or brand based on who pays them, because the British taxpayers do. It is untainted by capitalist bias.

The closest equivalent we have to the BBC in America is PBS. Everything on PBS is so low-key that a crazy powersliding supercar show like Top Gear wouldn’t fit in at all amongst the piano concertos, wildlife documentaries and children’s programming. And nobody but hardcore enthusiasts would even watch it if it were on PBS.

So that leaves only one other niche where it should go: premium cable networks. I’m not currently a subscriber to the HBO/Showtime/Cinemax lot, but I’d certainly consider it for something like this if it could be uncensored and not beholden to big-buck advertisers who will simply turn it into another Horsepower TV, where all the shows are just half-hour-long infomercials for the automotive aftermarket.

The decision to put Top Gear America on NBC is a huge mistake, but since the original Top Gear will continue unchanged, I’ll just keep watching that one instead. It’s too bad though.

UPDATE, June 2010: NBC requested and paid for the filming of the pilot episode, then upon witnessing it they abandoned it altogether in the fall of 2008. It has since been picked up by The History Channel and filming has resumed with a new selection of hosts.

Lake Superior State University’s Public Relations department recently did a year-end piece on the top expressions of 2007 that have to go, and to my surprise this wasn’t among them. Nor was that annoyingly overused and meaningless “Tipping Point.” Both should’ve been.

English is not an economical language, in the sense that there are lots of different words that mean the same thing. This is because English is the great Melting Pot of language, and many words borrowed from other languages have been integrated into it over the centuries. In fact, an estimated 81% of modern English comes from French, Latin, and Germanic languages alone. Yet despite having so many ways to say the same thing, most words also have multiple meanings depending on the context in which they are used. Strange as all this is, and as confusing as it must be for non-native speakers to try to understand it, as a result of having this cornucopia of synonyms the opportunities for inadvertent redundancy in English are frequent.

Sometimes we intend to use different words to say the same thing deliberately, either for emphasis, conceptual clarification, or a myriad of other reasons. It just makes sense to do it at the time. But other times, saying the same thing twice in two different ways that actually mean the same thing earns you a visit from the Department of Redundancy Department, and this one’s at the top of the list. Just say NO to picking and choosing!

And of course, politicians won’t have to abide by these laws because we’ve allowed them to be above the laws they’ve created. Just look at the Kennedys and that Foley guy. I have no sympathy for politicians who are ensnared in the foolish laws they’ve created for the rest of us – but they still get away with breaking them anyway.  Why do we allow this to continue?

Despite being legimately stripped of its poster child status by George, Craigslist is still be paraded around as example of the world that awaits us if something isn’t done and done soon to guarantee neutrality.

– David Berlind

Three errors in one sentence alone.

Update: Proving it’s gone beyond mere occasional mistake to near epidemic, the following is a direct quote from the ZDNet headlines by Dan Farber:

After 30 aquisitions totally nearly $7 billion, EMC still gets most of its estimated $11 billion in revenue from storage sales.

I know you guys need to get your articles out as fast as you can these days, but please – either re-read your posts and do a better job of self-editing them, or send them through an editor first!

• Using headphones while your computer speakers are still on, and your computer is dinging constantly with IMs and other alerts that you can’t even hear, but everyone within 20 feet does.
• Having one of those uber-laptops that produces so much heat it needs a fan that sounds like a noisy ventilation duct, whose speed varies so the pitch of its whine is constantly changing – and slowly sinking your surrounding coworkers into the dark pit of insanity. Of course, you’re such an ubergeek that you have two other computers sitting on your desk and aren’t even using your noisy laptop – it’s just sitting there as eye candy to show off to the lesser ubergeeks.
• Chewing gum with your mouth open, loudly snapping and cracking away at it.
• Muttering everything you read on your screen under your breath.
• Giving your coworkers a running commentary of everything you’re doing with your day.
• Eating excessively noisy or overpoweringly stinky food at your desk, or making quiet food unnecessarily noisy (like crunching ice cubes). Some foods fall into the “High Risk” category and should be used with extreme caution, like cabbage, radishes, garlic, and of course beans.
• Launching into a lengthy diatribe, technical or otherwise, at the slightest mention of anything on which you have an opinion.
• Attaching every crappy fingerpaint, mucilage, macaroni or other creation of your child’s to any available real estate in your vicinity.
• Clicking your ballpoint pen.
• Nervously bouncing your legs up and down.
• Sneezing so loudly that an entire hallway of people is startled out of their chairs.
• CELLPHONES! I could write a whole post on office cellphone etiquette, but the most annoying of all are talking loudly on them in the hallway, not setting them to vibrate mode while you’re in the office, or leaving them on your desk with the ringer on full blast while you’re in a meeting – just don’t!

1. People who are passionate about a cause but fail to see the deeper implications or consequences of their beliefs. For example, people who oppose expanded oil drilling by greedy oil companies, but don’t understand that it just makes the global oil supply tighter, which drives up prices and makes oil companies richer and all of us poorer. Example: Greenpeace and Exxon-Mobil.
2. People who don’t get grammar, don’t know why it matters, or misuse it thinking it makes them sound more intelligent – like those who think that a conjuction between two nouns in a prepositional object changes it to nominative: “The party was a lot of fun for my girlfriend and I” is wrong, and if you don’t know why you’re probably doing it too. Don’t even get me started on you/your/you’re, it/its/it’s, who’s/whose, whoever/whomever, or there/their/they’re.
3. People who waste food.
4. People who don’t understand how their selfish behavior affects other people. Like people who talk on Nextel walkie-talkies in an office.
5. People who think that proving to the world that they don’t care what you think of them through some external alteration to their appearance or behavior makes them superior. Like dying your hair some strange color or doing stupid self-destructive things for no apparent reason. It just makes you look like an insecure attention-whore. Example: Courtney Love.
6. Men who think that acting like women will get them laid. You are the reason the lesbian population is rampant!
7. People who drive in the left lane and don’t move over for the faster-moving car behind them.
8. People who think that it should be the government’s responsibility to protect us from ourselves.
9. People who think they should have a right to smoke in public. Keep your goddamn poisons to yourself!
10. People who think that being bored is someone else’s fault. It’s nobody’s fault but your own.
11. Parents who think that it’s everyone else’s job to protect their children, and that the world should be made a safe place for them. Wrong. Don’t expect society to be your babysitter, the world is a dangerous place made by adults for adults. Get them a helmet or keep them inside! Your children are YOUR responsibility, and it is unreasonable for you to expect that the world should be dumbed-down to a child’s safety level to make your parenting job easier. And here’s a tip: the easier you make it for them now, the harder you’ll be making it for them later.