Lost is full of many mysteries, all perplexing paradoxes and symbolism. At last here is a video that boils the show down to its bare essence. This, dear uninitiated Lost-phobes, is what you've been missing all these years.

Here's a preview of John McCain on Late Show tonight. He told host David Letterman, "I screwed up," then laughed and did a little "gee whiz" shrug, and made an awkward joke about being tortured in Vietnam. "What can I say?!" the Republican presidential nominee asked. Um, maybe give a reason why you lied about having to fly back to DC when you bailed on Letterman's show last time? Apparently that wasn't in the cards. Letterman later hit McCain for paling around with Watergate burglar and would-be firebomber G. Gordon Liddy, even though McCain has slammed Barack Obama for an arguably more distant relationship with 1960s radical William Ayers. By the end of the segment McCain appeared to be in full retreat on the Ayers issue. Witness McCain statement at the end of the clip after the jump (along with more bizarre face-pulls).

On Fox 5's Shame Shame Shame, Arnold Diaz traipses around "uncovering people who are involved in potentially shady dealings" and gives them guff. Ostensibly he's protecting the consumer, but as our expert clip compiler Nick McGlynn demonstrates, he's often just being a jerk. How about that!

Oh look, a New York Times piece about AOL customer service reps!

Google CEO Eric Schmidt, TIME, October 2:

While AOL's chief speaks at MIT,

Because the story that Hewlett-Packard's CEO was too "focused on getting the company fixed" to make sure the chairwoman didn't break it again is ludicrous, and because making comics is fun, here are more situations Mark Hurd can't handle because he's busy with his job.

Friends of Mark Hurd pulled off a beautiful spin job explaining to the New York Times why the Hewlett-Packard CEO didn't stop chairwoman Patricia Dunn and a whole team of investigators from digging up reporters' phone records and planning to plant spies at media outlets.

Google VP Marissa Mayer about the stark home page:

The Guardian UK on Marissa Mayer, Google's VP and de facto spokesperson, August 25:

So wait, if superstar developer Jason Fried is this month's cover story for a small business magazine titled "The Next Small Thing"...

The one-man newsletter "The ODP" slipped me this little gotcha: