Two great episodes of Veronica Mars tonight. The second one was especially fun, because we got to see that people who’re familiar with Veronica (e.g., Chip Diller) know better than to cross her… and then, we got the fun of watching while someone who wasn’t familiar with her got to find out why it’s best not to cross her.

Unfortunately, the second episode was the series finale, though they didn’t know that (for sure) when they wrote it, and it showed. We’re not left with a cliffhanger per se, but it’s bad enough that I was kind of upset that Rob Thomas didn’t at least write an alternate ending just in case things worked out this way.

Parts of this season were undeniably disappointing, but the first two seasons were tough acts to follow, and it was still better than most of what we get on other shows. This last stretch of episodes, though, has been excellent, and I’m really, really sorry to see this show leaving the air.

Consider the comments to this post an open forum to discuss the last part of the three-part finale to Heroes Volume 1. I’ll write a post with my thoughts eventually, but right now, this will have to serve.

Many people believe that the government should interfere with the free market when it is necessary to prevent things like price gouging. In Wisconsin, the government enforces it.

Raj Bhandari, owner of Center City BP in Merrill, WI, provided discounts to senior citizens and to those people who participated in a local hockey league’s fundraisers. By doing so, he violated the state’s “minimum markup law” (read: “Price Gouging Enforcement Act”), and received a letter informing him of that fact (ostensibly, threatening him with legal action if he didn’t cease and desist). He’s since stopped offering the lower prices.

This is what happens when we allow the government to start messing with the market — it doesn’t know when to quit.

After the Virginia Tech massacre, journalist Tom Plate wrote a commentary for CNN, “Let’s lay down our right to bear arms.” In this commentary (which has, quite rightly, been torn to shreds by Kevin Baker), Plate mentions the odd inclusion of the right to own guns in our Bill of Rights:

The use of guns is often the American technique of choice for all kinds of conflict resolution. Our famous Constitution, about which many of us are generally so proud, enshrines — along with the right to freedom of speech, press, religion and assembly — the right to own guns. That’s an apples and oranges list if there ever was one.

The freedom to freely express yourself. The freedom to spread ideas through a free press. The freedom to assemble with those you wish and to worship as you see fit. The freedom to defend yourself. Is it possible that the last of these rights is not really like the others? Are we really talking about apples and oranges?

I don’t believe we are. The right to bear arms (and, as a corollary, the right to self defense) is different from the rest of the rights listed, but what we are talking about here is not “apples and oranges”. If the other rights listed are apples, then the right to bear arms — the right that says you are permitted to carry a weapon to defend your property and your life — isn’t an orange: it’s the apple tree.

Spider-Man 3, which has been called the last movie in the trilogy by some (though it remains to be seen if the “Spider-Man trilogy” will be misnamed in the same way the “Hitchhiker’s Guide trilogy” was), was released on Friday. Unlike the previous two films, this one doesn’t focus on a single villain. Instead, Spider-Man must contend with Sandman, a new Goblin, and Venom. Overall, I was very pleased by this movie. It wasn’t as good as the previous one, but that’s neither surprising nor particularly disappointing, since the last one was excellent.

There were definitely scenes where this one fell flat or was unintentionally (I think) funny, but the overall story is solid, and while at the end of the movie you do feel like there’s been a lot of stuff going on for the last two hours, it doesn’t feel overly crowded. The Venom and Sandman storylines probably could’ve been split up and fleshed out enough to make this into two movies, but doing so would’ve made the conclusion to Harry’s storyline that’s been threaded through these first three movies much less satisfying.

Spoilers follow. You know the drill. (Not as many thoughts as you usually would’ve gotten, though, since I’ve put off writing this for a week. Sorry)

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