Skill-sets and price-points

Talking-head-lady on CNN, blabbering about FEMA's new man-on-the-ground Thad Allen: "he has the required skill-sets".

What happened to just skills? Did that die out with hunting, fishing, spearing and drawing on cave walls? Why the desire to fill silences and spaces with more words, particularly technical or even mathematical-sounding words?

Noticed how technology salespeople can no longer say "price"? It has to be "price-point". It instantly invokes images of graphs and charts and makes the mere act of providing a cost to the customer sound terribly exciting. "What would this software cost?" "Hmm...let's see, we can come to you at...a price-point (meaningful glance at the customer)..... of $19.95". Wowee, can I buy 10 of those?

As they say on infomercials, "but wait, there's more".

There was this caption-scrolling ticker thing on CNN about FEMA Director Brown moving back to Washington DC to see the "big picture". What? The man gets to sit in DC watching the aftermath on a new large-screen TV? What if Director Brown is tempted to look at very small pictures or perhaps, picture in picture? And what if the picture gets so big that he starts to see the whole planet or the Milky Way? Could he be nominated to the Fellow of the Royal Society of Astronomers?

If that happens, you know, at least he would have one hell of a skill-set.