Planet Utah

Okay, this one I read

I said I wasn't going to read any of the Buckley articles, but this one explains why Buckley talked the way he did.

Footnote: I think there's an important part of the explanation missing here -- some of it was affected. The alternative was that Buckley's highly peculiar speaking style was genuine, natural, organic. That's just too weird to contemplate. And think about this little story. In the pages of NR, Buckley used to answer questions from readers. One kind woman wrote in and said, basically, "Why do you use the word 'got' all the time, when it's so obviously unnecessary?" She gave an example something like the following: "Viacom's other co-president, Leslie Moonves, has got to have done something truly humiliating, because his bonus was only $14 million." (That's an actual Buckley sentence, by the way.) She noted that the sentence would work just as well--better, in fact--without the "got." Given a choice, though, Buckley ALWAYS used "got" in those circumstances. The woman wanted to know why.

Buckley didn't have a good answer, so he offered some brief disquisition on something or other, memorable only for its use  couple of "gots" that he knew would annoy the letter-writer. Readers were supposed to have a good chuckle at how above-it-all WFB was, answerable to no one on questions of language. But the honest answer, as far as I can tell, is that it was just an affectation, one designed to create an impression of urbanity and erudition, like many of Buckley's other linguistic idiosyncrasies.

Hillary's finished

Mathematically, I mean. Check this out.

Austin Power 4

For those of you who have been waiting for another Austin Powers movie, looks like you've got it. Only this time, it's called The Love Guru. Watch the trailer. Same basic formula: fish out of water, midget, hot chick, sight gags, physical comedy, sex, wiener jokes. If anybody but Mike Myers were involved, there would be a lawsuit for copyright infringement. But I guess you can't really sue yourself.

Democratic superdelegates

Have you heard the nonsense from Obama supporters about how the Democratic superdelegates shouldn't overturn the will of primary voters?  Think about it: if all superdelegates are going to do is ratify what voters have done at the ballot box, why do you even need them? You don't. You might need them, though, if primary voters pick a nominee that party big-wigs think can't win in November. In that case, superdelegates could throw the nomination to someone else (assuming the delegate count was close enough).

That's their job, Obama supporters. If you don't like it, change your party's rules.

The Miss Teen South Carolina map answer

We've all seen/heard this by now: the cute blond pageant girl flubbing a question about why many Americans can't find their own country on a map. Actually, it was popular months and months ago. As I've seen and heard it again a few times in the last couple of weeks, though, I've come to believe that it's probably the single most flagrant, unselfconscious display of stupidity I have ever seen. Here again is the transcript of her remarks:

I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as in, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq and everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, should help South Africa and should help Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our children.

Now, I'm not trying to be mean here. There are just some things that some people shouldn't do. Carl Lewis shouldn't sing the national anthem, for example, and this girl should not be in beauty pageants. She's not smart enough. Someone should have told her that. If she wants to make a living being cute without saying anything, she could be a model. But opening her mouth and expressing any thoughts whatsoever is a BIG mistake for her. Someone should have helped her steer clear of that mistake.

I know what she would say, because she said it on the "Today" show: "I misunderstood, I made a mistake, I drew a blank." Okay, well, which one of those was it, exactly? Also, her actual answer at the pageant was more consistent with stupidity than with any of her three explanations. "U.S. Americans"? Use of the phrase, "like such as"? Calling Iraq "the Iraq"? And if you actually saw her on "Today," you realize she's just not very bright.

This may sound disingenuous, but it makes me angry that no one stood up to save this poor girl from herself. Or perhaps they did, and she's just strong-willed and/or unjustifiably confident. In that case, she has only herself to blame.

A curious sentiment?

Maybe this is weird, maybe it isn't: I love National Review, but I'm not interested in reading even a single word about the life and death of William F. Buckley. Seriously. I've subscribed to NR for more than a decade, and it's my favorite thing in the world to read. But I've never found Buckley interesting in the least. I hope he is now reunited with his wife, that he died proud of his life's work, and that he rests in peace. But I'm going to be skipping all the obits.

Footnote: if you haven't seen "Annie Hall," stop what you're doing and go rent it right now. Let me give you the short version of a joke in the movie related to Bill Buckley. Woody Allen and Diane Keaton are broken up, but one night she calls him to come over and kill a spider in the bathroom. When he gets to her apartment, he finds all sorts of strange (to him) books and magazines. During their time together, he had tutored her in the basics of Manhattan liberalism, but now he finds that she is reading, among other things, National Review. He says, "What is this? Since when you do you read the National Review? What are you turning into?" She says, "Well, I like to try to get all points of view." He says (sarcastically), "That's wonderful. Why don't you get William F. Buckley to kill the spider?"

Democratic debate

I don't have much to say about this, other than three observations:

1) Hillary looked great. Sometimes she does, sometimes she doesn't. Last night she did. If I ever get married and my wife looks that good at 60, I'll consider myself lucky. Of course, I'll be at least 90 so it won't matter much.

2) Who the hell told Hillary it was a good idea to complain about being asked the first question all the time, and to joke about debate moderators coddling Obama, and to say, disingenuously, that she really didn't mind either of these things? This was a rare negative hat trick: a) it was inside baseball, causing a lot of debate viewers to scratch their heads; b) it made Hillary seem petty and whiny; and c) it made her seem two-faced, saying that she was happy to deal with the unfair treatment, even though she was clearly NOT happy to deal with it. Again, I see Satan's fingerprints...oops, I mean Bill's fingerprints...all over this one.

3) Tim Russert is an ass. Hillary came VERY close to calling him one, which probably would have been her biggest applause line of the night. I learn less watching Russert grill politicians than I learn watching almost any other interviewer. He thinks his job is to make politicians squirm, not to elicit potentially useful and valuable information. He's starting to remind me of Dan Rather, who so fell in love with his role as "big game hunter" (his words) that it ended up costing him his career. Russert isn't that far gone yet, but he's dangerously close to becoming a circus clown and a cultural joke, like John McLaughlin and Chris Matthews.

Okay, I'm not kidding here

One of the few people in the world that I actually loathe is Kevin Trudeau. You probably know him as the "king of infomercials." He's done prison time for credit card fraud, and he's paid huge fines to the FTC for false advertising. He seems to have some objection to making an honest living. Unfortunately, despite being a proven criminal and a known con artist, he's still allowed on television to sell his books (the most famous of which is Natural Cures They Don't Want You To Know About; by the way, he can only sell books now because he's prohibited by the FTC from selling any other kind of product or service).

Anyway, I'm flipping around the channels tonight, and I see him sitting at a desk with four attractive women, doing an infomercial, hocking his latest book, Debt Cures They Don't Want You To Know About. At one point, one of the women asks him an extended question. As she's speaking, a graphic pops up to identify her. It says: "Sara Jean Underwood, 2007 Playboy Playmate of the Year."

As I said in the headline, I am not kidding.

Footnote: you know who else was sitting around the table? Terri Oullette, aka "Terri O," formerly of Good Morning Arizona. If she's still a Valley resident, and if I ever see her around town, she's gonna hear from me about her Trudeau blood-money.

Again, I am not kidding.

The single most annoying thing about John McCain

It's not his self-righteousness. No, it's when he profits by relaxing his moral and ethical standards, and then tries to profit again by upbraiding himself for his moral/ethical lapse.

Think back to South Carolina, 2000. There he refused to say, "Hey, flying the confederate battle flag over the state capitol is probably not such a good idea." Instead, he said he saw the flag as a symbol of the state's military heritage rather than its slave heritage. Well, once he was safely bounced from the presidential race, he went on "Meet the Press," said that he really believed at the time that the flag should come down, and said that his failure to say so when it mattered was "an act of political cowardice."

Of course, he gets credit for this from everyone in love with his straight-talking image. Rolling Stone magazine, for example, cites the flag recantation as an example of McCain being "a man who will sometimes say what he actually thinks, even if it costs him politically."

In the words of Fletch, excuse you? You're giving him credit for saying exactly what he thought, even if it costs him politically, when the thing he was saying exactly what he thought about was an instance in which he did NOT say exactly what he thought, precisely because he thought that doing so WOULD cost him politically?

Put down the rolling papers, please.

Keep in mind, the Rolling Stone response is the one Senator McCain wants. It's called having it both ways. He acts in ways inconsistent with his reputation for rectitude, profiting once (in the case above, by not alienating SC Republicans). He then publicly and voluntarily flagellates himself for his failure of rectitude, profiting again (in the case above, by earning plaudits for his "straight talk" -- yes, even in cases when it's straight talk about previous crooked talk).

Sometimes, though, having it both ways isn't enough for Senator McCain. There was a great example in the recent NY Times lobbyist affair article. McCain holds a fund-raising event with scores of lobbyists, skips the event because he knows it doesn't look good to go to such things when your name is the first half of McCain-Feingold, and later criticizes himself for NOT attending, calling his decision "cowardly." (There's that word again.)

Slate's Jack Shafer had the best take on this particular episode: "Here, McCain has it three ways: He throws the event, he skips it, he criticizes himself for not attending it." (Italics added.)

The next Suns era

Better start thinking about it, 'cuz this one's going to end without a championship trophy. Can I make that call only 2.75 games into the Shaq era? I believe I can. This team is wildly inconsistent, with or without Shaq. A team that doesn't play much defense and simply tries to outscore you is going to be that way (as I've said a billion times). A wildly inconsistent team is not going to win the championship. The NBA (and the west in particular) is simply too good for that. (If you look at the Suns' record, which is good overall, you see that it's short on quality wins. They tend to lose to the good teams and beat up on the bad ones. That's only half of the championship formula.)

And really, have you thought about the Lakers' starting five? That's Kobe, Andrew Bynum, Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom, and Derek Fisher. That's a ton of offensive firepower -- more than the Suns have. Unlike the Suns, though, the Lakers have another gear on defense. Oh yeah, and their coach is Phil Jackson, who's got nine rings. The Lakers are on the rise, while the Suns have crested and are now on the downslope.

This means that somewhere in the next year or two, you're going to start hearing a lot of talk about the championship window being shut, and about the need to bite the bullet and start rebuilding.

I wonder what that next Suns club will look like...