The next domino in the corporate failure of once-iconic car maker General Motors has fallen, as it was announced today that the Hummer brand will be ended.  A deal was thought to be in the works with a Chinese heavy equipment manufacturer, but the apparent collapse of that deal has sealed Hummer’s fate.

While I was sorry to see the earlier end of GM’s Pontiac and Saturn brands, I’m not gonna miss Hummer in the least.  Whereas Pontiac carried history and Saturn represented change, all Hummer stands for is excess.  Born in the chest-thumping days following the original Iraq War, the initial Hummer H1 was a civilian version of the HMMV “Humvee” that gained much fame in the desert sands.  Large, loud, and with no place on civilian highways, the H1 was nonetheless popular with the “big ego, small penis” crowd.  Originally built by AM General, the folks who built the original Humvees for the military, the brand was bought by General Motors and expanded.

I can remember trying unsuccessfully to stifle a giggle the first time I saw the Hummer H2.  Downsized to more closely match the SUVs that were becoming popular at the time, it was literally the worst of both worlds.  It was boxy to try and resemble the H1 (and included embossed replicas of the some of the H1 features no longer needed in a smaller vehicle), but that cost the H1 valuable cargo space.  I figured they’d jumped the shark when I saw a crash test on an H2 that showed it had the suvivability of a ball of tin foil, but it was the even smaller H3 and a pickup version of the H2 that set the stage for failure.  In a time when intelligent people are looking to hybrids and electric vehicles as the future, the Hummer is as dated as leg warmers and spandex pants.

It’s important to note that while the Hummer brand is gone, the HMMV goes right on, as GM owns no part of AM General.  From now on, the only folks with Humvees are the ones who’ve earned them …

Shh … here that sound? It’s Johnny Carson spinning in his grave …

It’s hard to believe, but it was not that long ago that NBC was the leading broadcast television network in America.  My, how the peacock has moulted.  Nowhere is the lack of vision at the network so obvious as in their handling of Jay Leno and the iconic late night vehicle “The Tonight Show”.  It’s quickly turning into a classic example of how not to handle the succession of leadership – or leadership in general.

Throughout its long history, the Tonight show has seen old hosts go and new ones come.  Most people remember the classy way Johnny Carson departed nearly 20 years ago to make way for Jay Leno, and assumed there’d be something similar when Leno’s time came.  Behind the scenes, things were not nearly so smooth.  When Carson left, NBC has more hosts than timeslots, and when Leno was given the Tonight Show, David Letterman (who at that time followed Carson) bolted to CBS and direct competition with Leno.  No doubt fearing a similarly messy future, NBC promised Letterman’s replacement – Conan O’Brian – the Tonight Show slot once Leno retired.  They even went so far as to identify the point five years in the future when that transition would occur.  Apparently, thought, Leno either didn’t get the memo or simply didn’t sign off on it.

Last fall, as the five-year window approached closure, Leno began to grumble about leaving, indicating that he was being pushed out the door rather than retiring.  He even intimated that once he was off “Tonight”, he might bolt to another network and continue his late-night career.  Suddenly, NBC once again found themselves with an embarassment of riches.

We all know the old fable of the dog with two bones, and what happened to him.  Actually, I guess everyone knows the story other than NBC’s Jeff Zucker, who wanted to keep both bones.  His genius move?  Scrap the expensive, unwatchable 10PM lineup and give the slot to Jay!  It’s perfect, he must have thought – we get old Tonight Show followed by the new Tonight Show!

Well, that worked about as well as you might imagine.  Leno bombed at 10, angering affiliates who lost their vital viewer lead-in to their local newscasts.  Conan, meanwhile, who was a tenuous fit at best for the Tonight Show, lost all the Leno fans who simply got to sleep a little earlier now.

For those wondering how long the experiment – and the pain – would last, the answer is apparently February.  Multiple sources are reporting that Leno’s show has been cancelled and will be off the schedule once NBC ends their coverage of the Winter Olympics.  O’Brian, meanwhile, was asked to accept having the Tonight show pushed back a half-hour to make room for a new half-hour Leno show at 11:30 and suggested NBC go pound sand, claiming he was “defending the franchise”.  NBC looks like fools, Leno looks like an ungrateful bully, and O’Brian looks for a new network.

What amazes me is that whoever owns NBC/Universal/General Electric/Comcast, or whatever they are, will allow the good soldier O’Brian to be shown the door while Zucker and Leno both keep their jobs.

More to follow, no doubt …

They say the path to hell is paved with good intentions.  History is littered with the carcasses of well-meaning souls who genuinely believed they were doing something good for society right up to the minute they discovered their error – often with disasterous results. 

It’s no different today, as politicians of every stripe struggle to juggle the often-conflicting desires to help their constituents and remain in office.  Too often, that results in short-sighted decisions that allow them to bask momentarily in vote-gathering spotlight while saddling their successors with a much larger problem.

This shouldn’t be a big surprise to anyone, but it takes money to run a society. Unfortunately, in today’s contentious political environment, the head of any politician who dares to suggest that the people reaping the benefit of living in a society should pay the costs will soon end on a pike outside the castle. As a result, government is always looking for … creative … ways to raise revenue without having to utter the dreaded “T” word … taxes.

Technology has helped government in this effort by creating new potential revenue streams. The idea of a toll road is nothing new – just ask anyone on the east coast about turnpikes. But RFID and wireless communication makes possible the FasTrak electronic toll collection system, which allows the state to maintain toll roads – and vary the tolls based on traffic and time – without the additional cost and nuisance of paying toll takers.  While I’m philosophically opposed to the idea of outsourcing government infrastructure to commercial entities who reap a profit off the transaction – clearly, a topic of a future MarlinBlog rant – there’s no denying the success of the concept.

A similar technology-driven concept that seemed to be a no-brainer was the “red light camera”.  People running stop lights has been an issue since the first one was hung nearly a hundred years ago.   Not long after, the first motorcycle cop figured out that hanging out around stop lights could be very … profitable.  Believe me, the “California Roll” existed long before America discovered sushi …

Technology soon replaced the hidden cop, and thus was born the “red light camera”.  The concept is pretty simple – install a series of sensors, strobes and cameras tied to the timer on the light.  Run the light, or roll too far into the intersection, and smile – you’re busted.  A photo is taken of your car, your license plate – and in some cases, your face – and is soon in the mail to you – along with a bill, often in the several hundred dollar range.

For your average municipality, this would seem to be the ultimate win-win:  because the cameras are operated by an outside commercial vendor, there’s no cost to the city, and they get a predictable revenue stream.  As an additional benefit, the intersection becomes safer – or does it?

Everyone gets irritated at the idea of a faceless camera issuing tickets, but we all assume there’s at least an increase in safety.  The LAPD loves to crow about what a great idea they are. But the folks over at Channel 9 decided to check the facts, and were quite surprised at what they found. 

We crunched the numbers and the results may surprise you.

“Your data is shocking to me,” Sherman Ellison said.

Ellison is a ticket attorney and part time judge, who believes the cameras are there for one reason.

“No question. Purely a revenue generating device,” Ellison said.

Their first “red light,” as it were, was the reticence of the LAPD to even provide data to back up their claims of increased safety. If the cameras are producing the results they claim, you’d think they’d want to share them with the world. You don’t suppose the data doesn’t support the claim, do you?

We looked at every accident at every red light camera intersection for six months of data before the cameras were installed and six months after.

The final figures? Twenty of the 32 intersections show accidents up after the cameras were installed! Three remained the same and only nine intersections showed accidents decreasing.

At Manchester Avenue and Figueroa Street, accidents more than tripled from five before the cameras were installed to 16 afterwards. Westwood Boulevard and Wilshire Boulevard tripled from three to nine. At Rodeo Road and La Brea Avenue, collisions nearly tripled from seven in the six months before the cameras were installed to 20 in the same period afterwards.

The reason?

“People see the light flash and they slam on their brakes,” Ellison said. “That’s just human nature. As a result, more accidents, more rear end accidents.”

Oops.

The truth, as they say, shall set you free. Now that the truth is out there – the cameras generate revenue, but negatively impact driver safety – how do you think the politicians will react? I predict a flood of press releases disputing the evidence and lauding the cameras … and a push to install even more.

Sad.

Well, that didn’t take long …

While the airline and the union and the media continue to debate the actions of the pilots of Northwest Flight 188, who lost track of time for an hour and a half and missed the airport in Minneapolis last week, the FAA has stepped in and revoked their pilot’s licenses.

It’s clear from the letter sent to Captain Timothy B. Cheney and First Officer Richard I. Cole that the FAA isn’t screwing around, either …

“Not only did you not comply with … [air traffic controller] instructions, you did not even monitor the aircraft’s air-ground radios,” the letter said. “You were disengaged and impervious to the serious threat to your own safety, as well as the safety of people for whom you are responsible. This is a total dereliction and disregard for your duties.”

While a lot of new details came out in the letter, such as the location when they first lost contact with the plane (Denver, CO), the amount of time they were out of contact (91 minutes) and where they were when they finally got their act together (Eau Claire, WI), you can’t help but believe there’s still more to learn.

I still find it hard to believe that two experienced pilots would get so engrossed in a conversation about something so seemingly mundane – the new scheduling tool they inherited in the merger with Delta Airlines – that they’d flaunt company and FAA policy by whipping out their personal laptops to debate its merits. There just has to be more to this.

Ironically, had they just fallen asleep, they’d be hailed as innocent victims of a cruel and overburdened system, and be the poster children for reform – not to mention still be employed …

Chances are, you don’t know who Steve Phillips is. If you a baseball fan you might recognize him as an analyst for ESPN, and if your favorite team is the Mets you may remember his as your former general manager. But the average person likely had no clue who Phillips is – until the New York Post splashed the details of his infidelity across their front page today.

Phillips, it seems, had an affair this summer with a 22-yr-old intern with whom he worked at ESPN. Those sort of things have a way of getting found out, and his bosses at the network disciplined him and he ended the relationship. I’m sure Phillips thought that was going to be the end of things, but he found out this week it’s not gonna be that easy. Stealing a page from the “Fatal Attraction” playbook, Brooke Hundley decided that she would not be ignored, making bizarre phone calls, leaving a letter at Phillips’ house and reportedly contacting one of his children on Facebook.

In retaliation, the jilted young woman repeatedly phoned Phillips’ wife, Marni, saying, “We both can’t have him!” an explosive police report claims.

Hundley’s desperate actions — including accidentally smashing her car into a stone column while speeding away from the Phillips’ home after leaving the letter — terrified the family, according to the Wilton, Conn., police report.

“I have extreme concerns about the health and safety of my kids and myself,” Steve Phillips said in a police statement, adding that the woman became “obsessive and delusional” after he dumped her.

As a single guy, there are certain things in this world with which I have no experience – like being a married guy in an affair. But I’d like to think I’d do a better job of vetting my partner than Phillips did. This one’s clearly a few bricks short of a load, which isn’t entirely surprising for someone that age. But beyond that, if you’re going to put your personal and professional lives on the line, why would you do it with a girl who – how can I put this delicately – reminds me of the players on the college women’s softball team who always wanted to arm-wrestle the men. Erin Andrews this girl is not. Somewhere, Bill Clinton is letting out a sigh of relief because Phillips just took his title of “Worst Pick of Intern to Nail”. I just don’t get it. I understand loveless marriages and desperation, but this one escapes even me.

Phillips took a leave of absense from ESPN to deal with the problem. I would assume that Hundley – whose antics outside Phillips’ house led to the police call that ultimately blew the whistle on the whole deal – has some legal issues of her own. Here’s hoping the collateral damage avoids the innocent parties and the whole thing can be resolved in private – and out of the media.

I live in Redondo Beach, which as a Los Angeles suburb is overshadowed but not controlled by the second-largest city in America.  That’s a good thing, because while I benefit from all that Los Angeles provides, I can still sit back and laugh at some of the dumbass ideas their governing politicians come up with … like today, for instance.

If I were to ask you to name the iconic images that represent Los Angeles, you’d probably include the Hollywood Sign, Dodger Stadium and the Chinese Theater.  But I’ll bet somewhere in the top 10 would be grafitti – that cross between art and vandalism that exists in most large cities, but nowhere so readily identified with a particular city than in LA.  From “Chico And The Man” to “LA Law” to “Baywatch” you saw it in the opening sequences and interwoven in the plot lines.  Heck, we even have taggers that have become famous for their “artwork”.

But while some grafitti is genuinely beautiful and culturally relevant, most is just ugly messages left for rival gangs – and for the owners of the tagged buildings to clean up.  For many years, politicians have looked for ways to curb grafitti, and now the geniuses who are the Los Angeles City Council have come up with the perfect solution – at least for them – force homeowners to build grafitti-proof homes.

Per the new law, which was approved unanimously yesterday, new homes built within the city limits must be made from materials that are resistant to the spray paint that is the tagger’s weapon of choice, such as ceramic tile or baked enamel.

“The bottom line is we spend a lot of money on graffiti removal,” said council member Bill Rosendahl. “Wouldn’t it be great if we didn’t have to spend this much money?”

The ordinance, which was unanimously approved, offers an exemption to owners who sign an agreement with the city to remove any graffiti that appears on their property within seven days.

OK, let’s see if I have this straight, Bill.  You’re out of money because you don’t know how to manage a budget and blew your surge capacity on the Jackson funeral, and it irritates you to see all that grafitti as your aide drives you for your morning latte’. You don’t have the civic balls to go after the gangs themselves or the members actually doing the tagging, so you’re going to dump the burden on the homeowners that the little bastards tagged in the first place?

Dude, you and your cronies are the real work of art.  Someone needs to drive by and tag your offices … or maybe just drive by, if you know what I mean.  What exactly do you intend to do to those who refuse to clean off the crap within a week – take them for a perp walk?  After all, it’s a whole lot easier to take down a soccer mom than a street thug, right?

Of course, Rosendahl is used to sticking it to his constituents – he used to run the local cable franchise …

Hey there! It’s your old pal Stan, with your computer tip of the day …

I don’t always like to admit it, but I’m an Information Technology professional. I’ve got a degree in Information Systems, I own a web design company and manage several popular websites, and I develop software and processes for Boeing. I have two laptops, 5 Macs and a BlackBerry, with at least two of them within arm’s reach at any given moment. Much as I consider myself completely unrelated to the image of a coder banging keys in the dark by the light of a monitor (and I can hear several of my friends clearing their throats to dispute that statement), I’m an IT guy.

As Ron White said, “I told you that story so I could tell you this one.” I follow really good discipline when it comes to backing up my personal computers. I have a 4-terabyte JBOD array that automatically performs incremental backups of every server on the network, and it’s located remotely so if the worst ever happens and the computers burn down, there’s a good chance the backup array will survive. Fortunately, I’ve never had to use the data, but I sleep better knowing it exists.

The same can’t be said for my work computer. The company provides me with a laptop, and controls the software on it. They’ve always advocated frequent backups, but several years back they rolled out new software to each machine that reinforces the concept and performs automatic backups. Unfortunately, the application is so clunky that it adds an extra minute to the startup time, and it has a horrible habit of starting the automatic backups at the most inopportune moments, like when you’re hosting a presentation in front of a group of people. As a result, I’ve adjusted the backup time to the middle of the night, which makes my life easier but decreases the likelihood of a successful backup, since the machine needs to be on in order to be backed up (insert ominous music here).

We’re at a particularly busy point in my current software project, as we prepare to test new code and processes for members of our customer community. Knowing that, I opted to sacrifice the holiday weekend to stay home and write test scripts and documentation. I spent most of Friday, Saturday and Sunday working on the task, with a bit of software testing tossed in. As a result, by Sunday night I’d collected quite a large number of test script files and test result screen shots. Monday was my condenses holiday, until it dawned on me that the dry run I thought I had another day to prepare for was actually on Tuesday morning. Figuring I’d just take one more shot for the team, I fired up my laptop and prepared for a final couple of hours spent polishing the test script for the dry run in the morning.

Or at least that was the plan. Instead of a friendly home screen, I got a simple text message telling me that the system couldn’t start because of a missing or damaged system file. Hmm … this can’t be good. I try to restart one more time – same result. I’d been having issues with the unit in recent weeks, but didn’t think it’d actually do a hard crash – surprise!

My consternation on Monday night was nothing compared to what I learned yesterday morning once I delivered my dead computer to the Laptop Repair Center. Having dealt with a lot of misbehaving hard drives, I’m familiar with the process. Usually, hard drives don’t actually break, the code simply corrupts to the point they won’t boot any longer. The drive itself is usually fine, and can be made a slave drive to a functioning computer, allowing you to transfer out any data you might need – like, say, a full weekend’s worth of work. Unfortunately, as part of a tightening of the company’s computing security policies, full disk encryption was established for all company hard drives. That means the only way you can get the data off the hard drives is with the software that encrypted it – which resides on the drive itself. Corrupt the drive, and you’re screwed. Fortunately, we have our automatic backups – which I often miss. So when the technicians went to my most recent backup, it was nineteen days old. Any data from the last two weeks is lost in the ether, including everything I did over the weekend.

As the frustration subsided, the anger rose. Now, I didn’t realize the encryption would create this problem and, therefore, increase the importance of the backup, but that’s no excuse. I do this for a living; if anyone should be exercising proper procedure and discipline, it should be me. Because I didn’t, there’s currently a team of three cranking out test scripts as quickly as possible, and we took a one-week hit to our planned pilot. I’m still tallying up the missing data and reinstalling applications on the computer.

So the lesson of the day is: Back the frak up! Most computers come with backup software; all you need to do is tell it when to run the backup, or discipline yourself to manually perform the function daily. Trust me when I say you’ll be glad you did …

As Peter Griffin says, some things in life just really grind my gears …

Trina Thompson graduated in June from Monroe College in the Bronx.  It’s now August, and she’s still unemployed, so she did what you would expect any normal individual to do – she sued the school.

In her complaint, Thompson says she seeks $70,000 in reimbursement for her tuition and $2,000 to compensate for the stress of her three-month job search.

As Thompson sees it, any reasonable employer would pounce on an applicant with her academic credentials, which include a 2.7 grade-point average and a solid attendance record. But Monroe’s career-services department has put forth insufficient effort to help her secure employment, she claims.

“They’re supposed to say, ‘I got this student, her attendance is good, her GPA is all right — can you interview this person?’ They’re not doing that,” she said.

Thompson claims to have contacted everyone recommended by the college placement office, and her complaint alleges that the school did not insure that each of them contacted the students to offerthey get an interview.

She’s so convinced that she’s right, that she’s advocating all graduates without jobs to sue their colleges.

“It doesn’t make any sense: They went to school for four years, and then they come out working at McDonald’s and Payless. That’s not what they planned.”

OK, deep breath.

I find myself reminded of the classic Dan Ackroyd line – “Jane, you ignorant slut!”  This person has been out of school all of 12 weeks, has taken no apparent steps beyond calling a list provided by the school, and feels somehow it’s the school’s job to guarantee her a job.  Apparently, “denial” is more than a river in Egypt.

Trina, have you visited Monster.com, Craigslist, or Dice.com (which specializes in IT positions)?  Have you networked with other IT professionals or Monroe College graduates to see what else might be available?  Have you noticed that the country is in a recession, with thousands of qualified professionsals unemployed – most for far longer than your miniscule three months? You delusional, self-centered little girl.

Trina Thompson would like us to believe that this is a failure of the educational system.  The only failure is that someone can complete four years of college, receive a degree, and still have such a tenuous grip on reality.

All I can say is that she’s better win big, because after this pathetic display, no IT manager in their right mind would hire her.  I’d suggest she take the time before her first court date to practice the skills she’ll need in her next job:

Paper or plastic?

There are things in this world I understand … roses, marlin fishing, the internet … and there are things I don’t. Among those I don’t? Fake breasts. More on after yet another example of the misplaced priorities in society today.

Chantal Marshall is a British homemaker. The 50-yr-old mother of 9 seems normal enough, yet her family proudly holds an English record – the most breast augmentations within a single family. Between Marshall and 4 of her daughters, they’ve received 9 pairs of implants.

One short of a silicone six-pack

Ripley, 18, Tara, 22, Terri, 25, Emma, 28, and mum-of-nine Chantal, of Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Notts, now boast chest sizes ranging from 34DD to 32GG.

On one occasion, Emma and Ripley even ended up having breast enhancement surgery on the same day and at the same clinic as their mum.

Tara had booked her consultation aged 17 so she could have the op as soon as she reached the age of 18.

The sisters – all with matching blonde hair just like their mum – say that like most siblings they have always copied each other.

But they insist that when it comes their chest sizes, they aren’t at all competitive.

They reckon their desire for bigger boobs was inspired by Chantal – who is often mistaken by strangers for their sister.

They don’t mention the husband/father of this clan; I’m wondering if he’s present or if his departure led to the mother’s initial need to “improve” herself. Nor do they mention the other four five children; it would be interesting to learn the thoughts of those.

As a single guy, I have a vested interest in breasts; I’m among their biggest fans. I’ve dated women with implants, and I had one girlfriend get implants and another opt for a reduction, both while I was dating them. I’ve experienced a pretty good spectrum of what both natural and non-natural sources can provide.

Two comments I’ll make on this story, and the topic of breast augmentation in general, based on my experiences. First, while it’s true that some of the aftermarket boobies out there can look pretty damned nice in a sweater or bikini top, I’ve never seen a set that doesn’t disappoint once forced to stand on their own, as it were. The illusion ends the moment the bra drops, and anyone telling you otherwise is wrong. That’s particularly true as the cup size goes up – a cruel little fact; the better they look in clothes, the worse they’ll look later on. Now, if you don’t mind having that little reality check stare you in the face every time your girlfriend gets naked for you, go right ahead. But to me, it’s just another form of bait-and-switch.

My second comment goes beyond the breasts themselves to the motivation behind them.  There are certain circumstances when breast augmentation fills a legitimate medical need – post-mastectomy, for example, or cases where the breasts are mis-sized or effectively non-existent. An intelligently planned and executed augmentation can help achieve or regain a sense of “normalcy,” and that’s not a bad thing.

But that’s a far cry from what we see way too much of today. The article mentions the “Baywatch” influence, pneumatic breasts bouncing along like a pair of beach balls in the bleachers at Dodger Stadium. But what Pamela Anderson and Carmen Electra – not to mention the entire constituency of “Porn Valley” – have chosen to do is a business decision, one made based strictly on dollars and sense. Unless your goal is to be a porn star or a stripper, it’s the wrong path to go down.

There’s one common trait I see among the women I’ve known who opted to make changes. Whether for larger implants, smaller implants or decreased natural breasts, in each case they were looking for a surgeon to cure on their chests an issue that truly existed between their ears.  I understand better than most what it’s like to go through life without a lot of self-confidence, but to think that by stapling a pair of silicone balloons to your ribcage, effectively lowering the gaze of every man from your eyes to your chest, you will somehow become a better person is sad. Worse still, to hear an 18-yr-old girl talk of her need to increase from a 34C to DD is criminal.

"Hi, I'm a dumbass ... "

With the demise of Michael Jackson, there’s been a renewed look at the world of pop music, particularly back to a time when it was, well, relevant.  You remember – back when people had to actually sing, and didn’t have machines to clean up their sketchy voices and producers to surround them with so much noise that you can’t tell anyway?

That’s certainly not the case today.  For every solid singer who makes it to the big stage today – whether the hard way or the quick (read: AI) way – there’s a dozen performers who are cashing checks based on nothing more than image.  Leading the way is the queen of Yonkers, NY, Lady Gaga, who’s modern spin on electronic synth-pop is all over the charts these days.  I enjoy a decent dance tune as much as the next guy, but to hear her stuff you quickly realize the talent is the guy producing the tunes – her voice is just one more synthesized instrument to mix into the tune.  And to look at her … well, I just dare you!

Now, I don’t have anything against New York, or New Yorkers – although they do make me chuckle from time to time – but I do have an issue with anyone who tries to pass themselves off as “cutting edge” or “next wave” when in fact they’re just trend trash. That’s certainly the case with Gaga, who has convinced herself – and her fans – that somehow, she represents fashion and risk and the future, and anyone who doesn’t get it just doesn’t understand.  Count me among those who don’t understand, but that could be because I’m too busy doubled over in laughter to consider the cultural impact of her idiotic views.  I’ll give her credit, though, at least her latest getup covers most of her face, and her ass isn’t even hanging out.

To look at her is to consider her silly, but to listen to her is to recognize the basic delusion of it all.  Take this quote of hers from the latest issue of Esquire:

My concerts are about me being very private in public, but I’m very protective. My apartment is my stage, and my bedroom is my stage—they’re just not stages you’re allowed to see. When you let a bunch of people in there, they f*** with that energy and it becomes a circus. Put it another way: Everybody wants me to show my vagina to the world all the time. And the truth is, I don’t have to.

What the hell?  The pretentiousness of it all.  Look, it’s not like she’s the first person to play the ridiculous card all the way to fortune and fame. Pop music and reality TV are littered with the carcasses of her predecessors, bled dry and tossed aside, and I certainly expect her to be on the pile sooner rather than later.  Who knows – maybe she can follow in the footsteps of MC Hammer and burn out as a pop star and a reality star – now there’s something for her to aspire to!