Apparently, the design-blind folks at Crocs incorporated have decided to make life on Earth even more unpleasant. In a press release on 27 August, they announced the impending release of their apparel line, which, according to the press release, will be available come October. The fact that a market exists for their hideous sandals is astonishing and depressing enough. The fact that a market exists for clothing made out of their proprietary resin, "Croslite," makes me consider buying property on the moon.

The Crocs people have also launched a series of absolutely idiotic advertisements modeled after Apple's PC and Mac campaign. But, as anyone who has watched the advertisements has realized, the cuddly, cute and Crocs-sporting character on the right looks even uglier than the extremely ugly uptight businessman on the left. What has our society come to?

To capture the epic scale of my disastrous experience on US Airways, I began writing my account of the experience in the form of a Bible chapter. Three hours later, however, I had only managed to account for a fourth of the airline's missteps. So, rather than spend twelve hours writing, I have decided to tell the story with a more conventional form of prose, though, at a later date. Read on for the first fourth in biblical verse.

Fear not! The second installment of Woe, Waiters and Water, which will contain my account of horror and woe aboard America's worst airline, will arrive in due course. In the meantime, I have this quick trio of tidbits.

I recently discovered a wonderful blog called the Language Log, compiled by a number of esteemed linguists from around the world. The writing is very dense and the authors generally explore extremely esoteric aspects of semantics and other linguistic principles, but it is enjoyable all the same. I especially liked their recent post on the president's use of "like totally" in recent speeches.

Switching gears, my best photos from the recent Paris escapade are now organized and neatly arranged in a flickr Set for all to enjoy. My percentage of selects as they relate to total photos was exceptionally low, at just 5.07%, or about half my average. But some of the blame must be attributed to the rather capricious Parisian weather. Nearly all of my Louvre photos have a very sombre gray look that does not appeal to my artistic eye thanks to the dark August cumulonimbi that so frequently hovered over my lens.

Also of note on the photography front, my trusty Nikon D50 has now taken over 14,000 photos. To me that seems a staggering number, however, it may well be typical. Nikon has given its newest camera, the D300, a projected life span of 300,000 shots, which makes my number look rather sad.

Iowans have more power than they ought to. Their caucus — the first in the nation — has so much influence on the race to the White House that any politician even contemplating a stab at the presidency has no choice but to back ludicrous policies, simply because they appeal to Iowans. More troubling still, the politicians who generally consider presidential runs are senior politicians, who also happen to greatly influence the broader policy of their political parties. As a result, the entire legislative branch winds up supporting some truly idiotic ideas because the Iowans like them.

America's policy vis-à-vis ethanol epitomizes this problem. Rather than integrate the American ethanol market with the global ethanol market, the United States has built the Great Trade Wall of Iowa. Essentially, any ethanol coming from any other country has such an enormous tariff imposed upon it by the government that it becomes woefully uncompetitive with other, US produced, ethanol. Naturally, Iowa produces a great deal of corn. The same corn, in fact, used to create corn-based ethanol fuels. Good for Iowans, terrible for the rest of the world.

For, while injecting some cash into the Iowan economy is not necessarily a bad move, a de facto US monopoly on ethanol in the US has disastrous environmental, political, security and economic effects to every person on earth. Brazil, for one, has already worked itself into a tizzy over the fact that they, effectively, cannot sell their sugar-based ethanol products in the US, straining our diplomatic ties with that particular southern neighbor.

In the mean time, other US states have taken notice of this phenomenon and have, accordingly, scheduled their primaries to take place earlier in the year. California, for one, will now hold its primary on 5 February 2008, while New Hampshire — whose state constitution mandates that its primary be first &mash; has moved theirs back to 22 January, just a few weeks into the new year.

The net result is even more attention drawn to the so-called political "horse race" (i.e., who trumped whom in the latest poll) and away from a discussion from actual issues. I cannot remember the last time (or any time) Meet the Press had a panel of medical school professors, say, on the program to discuss which candidates possessed the best healthcare policy. Instead, the Chris Matthews Show features its segment, "Tell Me Something I Don't Know," where the assembled panel of journalists digs up some new piece of dirt on a politician and assesses its impact on their polling.

So, I propose the United States have one day in a presidential election year where every state in the nation simultaneously holds its primary. Preferably, this date would fall somewhere in the middle of the year — say on Saturday — and take place on a Saturday, to encourage people to participate by removing their obligation to take time off from work. I say the date is 5 April 2008, the first Saturday of that month. And, for a little extra zeal, why not give the day a catchy, interesting title to attract younger voters and shrug off that pesky air of stodginess? Say hello to Swashbuckling Saturday, the day America chooses its presidential candidates.

The candidates would likely not actually engage in swordplay (though, admittedly, an épée between Obama and Guilliani would be interesting) or physically hurt one another in any way. They would, however, no longer support the ludicrous policies that benefit a handful of states with influential primaries, in favor of looking more macroscopically at which policies best serve the entire country.

Detractors might argue that this would prompt candidates to visit states with population centers, like New York or Ohio, instead of focusing their attention on smaller states, like Iowa. In all likelihood, such detractors would be correct. But to view that as a something undesired would be foolish. It makes infinitely more sense to have the populations of California and New York — whose combined population weighs in at around 56 million or nearly 20% of America's population — dictate national policy than the much smaller population of Iowa.

Hopefully, by removing Iowa's stranglehold on presidential positions, this country would finally adopt policies on their merits, rather than on their impact to Iowans. Yes, in the short run, Iowans will suffer. But, in the long run, the increased competition will force them to innovate, which has rarely hurt any economy. Swashbuckling Saturday would probably have a small impact on the media, but it would, at least, confines their coverage of the horce race to one, rather than dozens, of different days.

Rather than begin the account of my latest Parisian adventure with the often comical, but entirely unpleasant, experience of flying on US Airways, I will instead begin with the food, which was mostly wonderful. Some of the eateries, mostly those chosen for their convenient locations rather than the quality of their food, did not serve up the kind of delicacies that I expected. Others, however, surprised me with their delightful blend of value, charm and good cooking.

Read on for the itemized account.

Mention of the Bose brand in conversation usually results in one of two discussions. Audiophiles sneer and assert that Bose ought be called "blows" for the mediocre audio quality its products offer. The rest of the world praises the ear-pleasing audio quality of Bose speakers, but recoils slightly at their inflated prices. Despite these differences, however, everyone can agree that the Bose brand oozes pretense.

Not that Bose does anything to make their image less ostentatious. Their advertising never makes mention of the price, as if to associate their Wave Radio or Lifestyle speaker systems with other super-premium luxury items whose price is only disclosed to the small portion of America's bourgeoisie who can afford them.

And, on one level, I wholeheartedly concur with the audiophiles. Bose speakers always imbue music with an excess of something I can only describe as "cheer." They make Bartök and Kabalevsky sound almost uplifting — something that, to anyone who knows anything about classical music, is conceptually impossible. I also cannot fathom why Bose sets such outrageous prices. They must have fantastic margins. When it comes to noise-canceling technology, however, Bose QuietComfort headphones set the bar for quality. David Pogue could not be more correct when he says, "The world just falls away," in his review of noise canceling headphones.

So, when my previous pair of noise canceling cans — a venerable set of Sennheiser PXC250 headphones — decided to malfunction a few weeks ago, I figured I would splurge and buy the best.

For the most part, the Bose QuietComfort 2 headphones meet my expectations. My Bartök sounds a trifle too jolly to be Russian, and the noise cancelation is marvelous. The included carrying case, however, contained something so incredibly pretentious I burst out laughing.

Inside the padded carrying case Bose provides a dozen business cards, which state:

Bose has redefined the meaning of narcissistic. Not only do they think the customer will love their headphones, they also seem convinced that total strangers, who merely catch sight of the Bose logo painted subtly on the side of the earphone, will inquire about the product's loveliness.

Frankly, I think Bose would probably do better business if they dispensed with their air of snobbery and, instead, appealed to the average American. It is the average American, after all, who would want speakers with a touch of added cheer.