American Idol has turned into one big pity party for Sanjaya. How this guy has remained in the competition for so long is the stuff of legend. After basically being laughed off stage Tuesday, I was almost certain he was headed back to Seattle this week. Oh, well.

There's always next week. ;)

Arghhhhh! Sanjaya defies logic. I would love to see the demagraphic voting patterns. Brandon handed it to him. Clearly, he's a superiour talent but he didn't step up and under any circumstances I wouldn't have been surprised he left. But given that Sanjaya is the one to benefit annoys me. I agree; those intro songs are absolutely atrocious as are those abysmal commercials. You can't put a cool spin on that no matter how hard you try. I thought Diana Ross's dress was going to fall straight down. Now that would have been good fun.

T. Rigney and Alessandro- It seems that every year there's a contestant who defies all odds and stubbornly remains on the show even though they totally don't deserve to be there. Most of the time it's a teenager, i.e. John Stevens, Kevin Covais, Mikalah Gordon, and now Sanjaya. I wish parents would steal the phones away from their damn kids so they couldn't keep voting for him.

1.) Has a theme been announced for next week? What is it?


2.) SANJAYA DOES NOT DEFY LOGIC. I think you don't understand positive vs. negative voting. Most people don't, as they refer to people getting "VOTED OFF," when NOBODY IS VOTED OFF. THE PERSON WITH THE FEWEST # OF VOTES GOES HOME, BUT THAT IS NOT BEING VOTED OFF. THERE IS A DISTINCTION.

Remember that on Idol you vote people to stay on, meaning that if you are a fan of x, you will vote for x. Fans of y vote for y, etc.

But if it were negative voting, fans of x and y would pool their votes to vote off z.

Sanjaya sticking around isn't proof that FOX is legit with votes, it just shows how positive voting work.

Later on, if Sanjaya is still around, they may fudge results. But now it provides plenty of controversy, and that is what gets ratings for AI in this stage.

If FOX wanted bad singers off quickly, they would change to negative voting. But the current way provides controversy, and controversy/hated/debate/etc = viewership.

Ty- Ryan didn't announce the theme. In fact, they ran out of time that Brandon didn't even get to sing his last song. Man, he really got shafted. I checked the main AI website and couldn't find any info on the theme either.

I heard that Howard Stern is encouraging people to vote for Sanjaya and that there 's a website called 'vote for the worst singer' or something like that. That might explain it. Ty, try not to be presumptuous - I understand mathematics fine enough. It was a rhetorical, off the cuff comment.

For the record, you do realize that the votes are tallied up by an independent accounting firm - AI can't influence this.

alessandro: You understand math, got it.

What about game theory?

Do you understand the difference (as in the CONSEQUENCES) of positive vs. negative voting? Do you realize positive voting is the key factor someone who should "obviously" go home stays on because of the inability of fans of different singers to pool their votes to get rid of someone?

How did we get here again? Oh yes, because of an innocuous remark. The answer to your question (and I will leave it here) is: yes. It's actually a strategy, in a different variation, employed in political conventions. I've seen it in action. Regardless, didn't mean to get into foul trouble about a show like AI. Sheesh.

I believe the next theme week is "British Invasion", but I may be wrong.

I found the whole Diana Ross appearance and "mentoring" to be an absolute sham. Here she is telling people how to perform and sing and then she lays an egg. Out of tune, out of time with the band and screaming - it was as Simon would say "not even good Karaoke". Of course he was smiling, standing and clapping when her performance was mercifully over. I wonder what he would have said if a contestant had sung so badly?