Irish Trojan in Tennessee

A missed opportunity

By Brendan Loy

It occurred to me tonight that, with all the talk of "Super Duper Tuesday," "Pooper Scooper Tuesday" and so forth, I really ought to have referred to yesterday's Michigan primary as "Yooper Tuesday." Alas!

My Millionaire moment

By Brendan Loy

Now that my Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? segment -- or rather, Diane's segment featuring me -- has aired everywhere it's going to air (most recently in St. Louis, ending moments ago), I think I'm safe re-posting the original blog entry that I published, then quickly yanked offline at ABC's request, in the immediate aftermath of the taping back in September.

Here's what I wrote, in a post originally titled "Millionaire update" and timestamped 4:47 PM EST on 9/11/07:

I just helped Diane get the $16,000 question right on Who Wants to be a Millionaire!

Well, really, Google and Wikipedia helped her get the $16,000 question right. But my fast typing skills helped. :)

The question was, "What does a mycologist study?" (Well, it was worded more verbosely than that, but that was the gist.) I forget what the first three choices were, but the fourth choice -- "d" -- was "fungi."

I was already on the Wikipedia page, and ready to blurt out "fungi," by the time she was done reading choice "b" (whatever it was).

They don't actually let you stay on the line long enough to hear whether they got it right (though I did stay connected just long enough to hear Meredith Viera make a bad pun about me being a "fun guy"), but she sounded like she was going to confidently go with my answer, which would mean that unless the collective tubular wisdom of the Internets is wrong, she did indeed get it right. (I sure hope the Internets aren't wrong, because I told her I was 100% sure!)

P.S. I hope there isn't anything wrong with me revealing this information. Certainly, I never signed any confidentiality agreement, nor was I asked orally or otherwise not to say what happened, so I don't see how I can be violating anything by posting this...

Heh. As I explained later that day in a 5:53 PM post, the above-quoted 4:47 PM post was a problem -- though I still maintain that I wasn't violating anything -- and I voluntarily removed it. Now, more than three months later, I'm finally re-posting it. (I briefly re-posted it earlier today, but then it occurred to me that the show hadn't yet aired everywhere, so I yanked it offline again.)

By languishing unseen behind an iron curtain of self-censorship for more than three months, the post shatters the record previously held by this post, which was embargoed for just under a month at Professor Bill Kelley's request. ;)

Anyway, the $16,000 question was the last one for today's show. Diane will be a "holdover" contestant on tomorrow's show, starting with the $25,000 question. Tune in to see what happens! (Check your local listings to find out when it airs.) Again I say: Goooo Diane, Beeeeat Meredith Viera!

New Hampshire recount underway

By Brendan Loy

The Dennis Kucinich-funded New Hampshire recount began today.

Thin is in.

By Jay Johnson

Looks like some are going to extremes to match the new MacBook Air's uber-thin profile.

Hat tip: Cult of Mac

UB boosts Gill's salary, extends contract

By Brendan Loy

Buffalo's Turner Gill gets a contract extension: "Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed but Gill's new salary is expected to put him in the top tier of MAC coaches."

Uncommitted wins Michigan! (sort of)

By Brendan Loy

If the Democratic Party ultimately decides to seat Michigan's currently banished delegates, Hillary Clinton will get 73 of them, and 55 will be uncommitted, according to The Green Papers.

The state also has 28 (hypothetical) superdelegates, who are by definition "uncommitted." So if you add it all up, Uncommitted wins, 83 to 73!

Of course, "winning" by a margin of 83 hypothetical delegates to 73 hypothetical delegates is sort of like being crowned the national champion of an imaginary college-football playoff. But still... way to go, Unc! (Can I call you "Unc"?) Unc all the way! Unc '08!! Yeeeeeaarrgh!!!

If only Uncommitted could give a victory speech! I'm sure it would be another transcendent political moment, a stirring celebration of yet another barrier-breaking victory:

"They said this day would never come... they said a non-corporeal entity, a mere word on a printed piece of paper, running against various homo sapien opponents, could never win this primary... but they were wrong, weren't they, Michigan? They were wrong!"

[crowd cheers, chants "Unc! Unc! Unc!"]

"You showed them that our undefined, noncommittal message is resonating with the American people! To all of my countrymen who don't know what the hell they want in a candidate, I say: join us! Together, we will take back this country for nobody specific and nothing in particular!"

Yes, as my dad says in comments, it would truly be an undefining moment in our nation's history.

Diane on Millionaire, me on the radio

By Brendan Loy

My friend Diane Krause (née Huffman) will be on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? today and tomorrow -- and my voice may or may not be on as well. (You might recall that I was one of Diane's phone-a-friends.) That's all the powers-that-be want me to say for now, but... tune in to find out what happened! Check your local listings to find out when it airs in your area. Goooo Diane, Beeeeat Meredith Viera!

Also, I'll be on Silvio Canto's Blog Talk Radio show at 12:30 PM EST today. Silvio contacted me after one of my recent Instalanches and asked if I'd be willing to chat with him on-air about... uh... politics and stuff, I guess. Anyway, if you don't catch it live, it'll be archived here after around 1:30 PM.

UPDATE: Here's the radio interview; it's about a half-hour long:

As for Millionaire, the first of Diane's episodes has already aired in a lot of places, but not everywhere. As best as I can tell from the show's local listings page, the last place in the country where it initially airs each day is in St. Louis, where it's on KDNL Channel 30 from 10:00 to 10:30 PM CST (11:00-11:30 EST). Therefore, I will refrain from posting anything further about it until 11:30 PM. Stay tuned for a new post at that time. :)

So... now what?

By Brendan Loy

I didn't actually get to watch very much televised coverage of last night's Michigan results -- the American Idol premiere was on, we only have one TV, and I have a sleep-deprived wife with veto power :) -- but I did catch a bit of CNN's analysis late in the evening while I was trying to shush Loyette to sleep. I saw Anderson Cooper game-planning the next few weeks of primaries, and it seemed to me that he was talking for the first time about a brokered GOP convention as a serious possibility, as opposed to just a pundits' dream. And he's not the only one. Our resident Republican realist Andrew, who is not exactly prone to making wild and crazy predictions, wrote this in comments last night:

Romney wins Michigan, and I think Huckabee wins a close but very divided field in South Carolina. I honestly think we have a great chance to get to the RNC with Huckabee holding a slight plurality of delegates, but Romney, McCain, Thompson, and Giuliani will broker amongst themselves to take the nomination and shut out Huckabee.

He adds that this "may not be a bad thing" for the GOP, and makes a pretty interesting argument for that point of view, but you can read the full comment for that. I'm just focused on the fact that this brokered-convention thing is looking like a real live possibility. In fact, it's getting harder and harder to see how it won't happen.

The key to preventing a brokered convention, it seems to me, is for Giuliani to completely collapse. Because if, as expected, he wins the winner-take-all northeastern states -- New York, Connecticut, New Jersey (hat tip: Halperin) -- and gets at least a sizeable share of the vote in Florida, California, etc., he'll have a decent chunk of delegates. And certainly, Huckabee is going to rack up a bunch of delegates, too, from evangelical support alone. But I don't think either of those polar opposites of the Republican coalition can cobble together a majority.

There's probably more than enough space in between the poles for a single anti-Huck/anti-Rudy candidate to get a majority of delegates. The problem is, there is no such candidate right now -- there are three of 'em! That trio may soon be down to two -- Romney's win last night is bad news for Thompson, and if he doesn't win (or finish a close second in) South Carolina this Saturday, he may be finished -- but it's now impossible to imagine either McCain or Romney dropping out before Pooper Scooper Tuesday. Unless one of them dominates the non-Rudy, non-Huck states on that day, it's hard to imagine the GOP delegate count being anything other than a hopelessly splintered four-way race...

...unless Giuliani doesn't win those northeastern states, and doesn't do well in the other Rudy-friendly locales like Florida and Cali. His support has been fading, and 3% in Michigan (behind Thompson and Paul, again) isn't exactly a vote of confidence. What if the "Giuliani Republicans" in the northeast abandon Rudy for McCain? Or, what if McCain and Giuliani split the moderate/centrist vote -- and emerging "conservative" front-runner Romney wins those states? I don't think either scenario is inconceivable.

But unless something like what I've just described happens, I don't see how any Republican is going to earn a majority of delegates at the polls. Of course, I haven't exactly been on a roll with my predictions lately (I said Romney would win New Hampshire, McCain would win Michigan, Obama would not lose a single primary, and Ohio State would beat LSU), so now I've just destroyed any hope of a brokered convention by predicting it. Darn it. :)

P.S. I just added the Maine GOP caucuses (February 1, in between Florida and Super Tuesday) to my countdown sidebar at left. Respect Maine! Remember (the) Maine! Are you listening, Fred? Heh.

Mitt Romney's breach of protocol

By Brendan Loy

This isn't going to soothe any of the bad blood between the McCain and Romney camps.