$100 fill-ups arrive at gas pumps - CNN.com

CNN.com reports that gas prices are over $4 a gallon in some places, yielding $100 fill-ups for a van towing a horse trailer. And you know what?:

A person making $9 an hour needs to work nearly seven hours just to pay for 15 gallons at $4 a gallon, according to CNN.com's gas calculator.

And in a related story, Texas Instruments confirmed that 15 times 4 divided by 9 is nearly 7. Hewlett-Packard and Casio could not be reached for comment.

Honestly, people. A web applet that answers the question "How long do you have to work to earn enough to fill your gas tank?" is a cute idea, but this is the kind of math that high school graduates need to be able to do, or at least check, for themselves. We should not have to appeal to the numerical expertise of the Flash developers at CNN.com.

News flash! According to CNN.com's gas calculator, I "need to work 1.74 hours to afford one tank of gas." If you'll excuse me, I have to go ask my 12-year-old cousin for a soundbite on how many minutes that is.

Right Fight, Wrong Word

New York Times blogger Dan Schnur says Obama's mistake was saying "cling", not saying "bitter":

Both the Clinton and McCain campaigns focused on the word “bitter” — allowing Senator Obama’s supporters to engage in a largely semantic discussion about whether economically disadvantaged Americans were “bitter” or “angry” or “frustrated.” But this is a meaningless series of distinctions even in this super-charged political environment. It’s safe to say that people without jobs are not particularly happy about that situation, regardless of the adverb in question.

Someone alert Geoffrey Pullum. "Bitter", "angry" and "frustrated" are not adverbs. Wrong word, indeed. Oh, well. Read it anyway.