Tsunami!

Anger without the enthusiasm… anger without the enthusiasm….

Tomorrow is Tuesday. But it’s not just Tuesday. It’s more than Tuesday. It’s Super Tuesday. Uber-Tuesday. Tsunami Tuesday! Isn’t that exciting? Aren’t you excited? Well you should be. What do you mean why? Because it’s Super Tuesday, that’s why! Super Tuesday! Super!

Now that we’ve dispensed with the media hype we can get down to business. Twenty-four states will hold presidential primaries or caucuses tomorrow. Fifty-two percent of Democratic delegates and forty-one percent of Republican delegates will be awarded by the time the contests are over, many in a manner more confusing than the popularity of Ryan Seacrest. I had planned on going over the results as they rolled in tomorrow evening, but I realized this past weekend that I’m not as young as I used to be, and therefore cannot stay up as late as I used to. So instead of trying to assemble coherent sentences through bleary eyes and foggy brain, I’ll attempt to tackle the results of tomorrow’s primaries on Wednesday night.

If the opinion polls are to be believed – and there’s really no reason they should be – Barack Obama has virtually erased Hilary Clinton’s nationwide lead in a span of 12 days. In most national polls, the two senators are now well within the statistical margin of error. In some cases, like California for example, what was once a 30+ point lead for Senator Clinton may now be a four-point lead for Senator Obama. If these snapshots of voter opinion are accurate and hold through tomorrow, Obama will have pulled of a come-from-behind victory on the scale of what his Republican counterpart John McCain is poised to complete by the close of voting Tuesday evening.

About six months ago, Senator John McCain was all but politically extinct. He was old, broke, and buried at the bottom of the Republican heap. Well, it’s a new year, and McCain is a new man. He’s still old and broke, but he is now the (almost) undisputed Republican front-runner, leading by double digits in nearly every state poll and poised to clinch his party’s Presidential nomination. While this may seem like the ultimate resurrection story – a phoenix rising from the ashes of the Arizona desert, it makes some in the Republican Party very nervous, and very angry. A quick perusal of talk radio will tell you all you need to know about McCain’s detractors, for they are the biggest names in conservative media and entertainment. And the vitriol is of the sort usually reserved for union leaders, environmentalist, illegal immigrants and liberals. Last week on Sean Hannity’s radio show, author and political harpy Ann Coulter claimed that if McCain is ultimately selected to run for president, she will personally campaign for Hilary Clinton, citing her belief that Clinton would be “more conservative” and “tougher on terror” than McCain. Coulter was obviously not serious about supporting Clinton, but the mere fact that she would use the words “I will” and “campaign for” and “Clinton” in the same sentence goes to demonstrate just how terrified certain elements of the party are of losing a certain degree of their influence. So if McCain emerges from Super Tuesday victorious, we may be looking at a shift in the balance of power in the Republican Party. What that means for the country remains to be seen.

Most of you may not have noticed, but there were two more presidential debates last week ahead of the California primary. Why are there so many of these things? Have we ever had so many debates prior to the selection of nominees in which we have learned so little? Why continue subjecting people to this crap? How many ways can we listen to the candidates tell us the same things they told us a year ago when this whole mess began. Is it me, or do cable news channels continue to sponsor debates in the hope that someone will eventually break down and start throwing punches? Cable’s version of political pornography.

In other political news, President Bush unveiled his final budget plan today, weighing in at over 3.1 trillion dollars. For those of you who don’t like words, that budget number looks like this: $3,100,000,000,000. For those of you who need an English translation, that equates to one hell of a lot of money. But don’t worry, according to the President, he has specifically tailored this budget proposal to control spending. I’m not sure I understand how a 3.1 trillion dollar budget – which excludes any funding for the current wars (sure to follow in subsequent appropriations bills) – keeps a lid on spending, but what do I know. He’s the President, I’m sure that means he’s a wiser man than me. Can you feel the sarcasm? Can you?

The Federal Bureau of Investigation announced this morning that they would soon award a billion dollar contract to create a complete biometric database of everyone they possibly can over the next ten years. The idea is to record every fingerprint, palm print, iris scan, face recognition photo, security camera snapshot, social security number and EVERY other identifying media you can imagine, store it on a hard drive in the basement of FBI Headquarters and be able to call it up at a moments notice – all for your protection. That’s right ladies and gentlemen. If every iota of your personal information is not floating around on an FBI server, accessible by any joker in the building with a password or fifteen-year-old kid in Denmark with a broadband connection, terrorism wins. Terrorism wins big. So you might as well surrender your privacy now.

There was an interesting development in the Natalee Holloway case over the weekend. Remember Natalee Holloway? You know, Alabama teenager on a field trip with classmates to Aruba who disappeared the night before she was scheduled to return home? Well, in an interview airing on Dutch television over the weekend, prime suspect Joran van der Sloot admitted being with Holloway on an Aruban beach when she died, and that a friend of his with a boat (neither of his two alleged co-conspirators) took her body out to sea and disposed of it. He admitted to a bunch of other things as well, leading Dutch authorities to reopen the investigation and a Dutch judge to declare the videotaped “confession” admissible in court. Sounds like this case is resolved, doesn’t it? Only one problem. Joran van der Sloot now claims he made the whole thing up, that he simply told the guy what he wanted to hear. Unfortunately for van der Sloot, he told the guy exactly what the prosecutor wanted to hear as well. If you’re guilty and you know it, shut your mouth.

Disney’s “Hannah Montana” concert movie topped the box office this past weekend with a take in excess of 29 million dollars. In case you’re wondering, that figure is double the gross of its closest competition. Granted, it opened against such cinema juggernauts as “The Eye,” and “Over Her Dead Body,” but it’s pretty impressive none-the-less. In fact, the “film” performed so well that Disney plans to extend the planned one-week only run for another week. When I was little I dreamed of the day the word would be taken over by ten-year-olds like me. Alas, that day is upon us. Run for the hills.

According to AskMen.com, (what?) Grey’s Anatomy actress Katherine Heigl is this year’s most desirable woman. I don’t know who voted in this poll, but I’m going to assume they were all women. Partially because men don’t watch Grey’s Anatomy and have no idea who Katherine Heigl is. (I’m actually a little embarrassed that I do.) And also because men wouldn’t visit a website called AskMen.com. Men know what men think. We don’t need to ask other men what we think. So, to rephrase, according to all the women who voted in the AskMen.com poll, Katherine Heigl is this year’s most desirable woman. After reviewing the evidence, I don’t understand why. She’s pretty, but I’m not feeling the desire. There are probably fifteen or twenty ladies ahead of her on the desirability scale. Women have odd taste in women.

Finally tonight, in a move that NO ONE saw coming, Texas Tech basketball coach Bob Knight resigned tonight, in the midst of a decent season, turning the coaching duties over to his assistant coach and son, Pat. For those of you who don’t remember Knight for his coaching, you might remember him for throwing chairs at referees, or smacking his players in the face, or yelling obscenities at reporters during press conferences. There is no middle ground with this guy, you either think he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, or the worst thing since stale, moldy bread. But the best part about this is that we no longer have to think of his at all. (You can probably tell which side of the fence I’m on.) Knight has always been an arrogant, abusive, annoying, ill-mannered son-of-a-you-know-what, and I’m sure college basketball will get along just fine without him. Good riddance Bobby.