The NBA playoffs are about to begin and so we must all prepare ourselves for the seemingly endless and sometimes painfully vacuous predictions and analysis of the empty suits at ESPN. Legler and Bucher will provide some fairly intelligent commentary, but will make predictions and somehow simultaneously avoid making predictions -- “Well Mike, if Alan Iverson plays the way that we all know that he is capable of playing, and if Gilbert Arenas is actually fully healthy, and if Shaq cannot avoid foul trouble, and if the rumors of Sam Cassell's being from the planet Krypton somehow affect the way that Garnett is playing, and if Ginobli continues to favor his left groin as opposed to his right groin because he is left-handed, then we might just possibly see a Nuggets/Wizards finals.” Steven A. Smith will spew some intelligent commentary, but because of his nasty habit of angrily yelling it at us, we won't hear it. Bill Walton, famous for his convoluted way of somehow comparing the philosophies of Pliny the Elder to the coaching techniques of Flip Saunders, will come down off the high caused by the painkillers that he his taking for his pinched nerve in order to make some comments. But because he is Bill Walton, everything that he says will still sound as if it is coming from a Darvon-induced euphoria. Dick Vitale will chime in with his usual meaningless and moronic predictions, a la “the Cavaliers will beat the Spurs in six games” (For those of you who may have forgotten, the Spurs swept the Cavaliers).

Now that I have preemptively criticized the analysis and predictions of the Empty Suit Programming Network, it is only fair that I expose myself to similar criticism by providing my own vacuous analysis and laughable predictions. I will agree with most of the analysts and say that the NBA playoffs this year have the potential of being the best playoffs that we have seen in a long time. Through a seemingly magical confluence of events and some blockbuster trades, the NBA is close to parity among it's playoff teams. The talent level is very close to being equal on each of the eight competing Western Conference teams, and there are only small variations in the level of talent on the first five seeds in the Eastern Conference. I am not willing to state that the big three of Garnett, Pierce, and Allen is clearly superior to Wallace, Billups, and Hamilton. Nor will I state that Gasol, Bryant, and Odom are clearly superior to Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili or that Shaq, Stoudemire, and Nash have more talent than Camby, Anthony, and Iverson.

God Save the Fan Will Leitch Best Price $12.47 or Buy New $16.47

Book Review: God Save the Fan: How Preening Sportscasters, Athletes Who Speak in the Third Person, and the Occasional Convicted Quarterback Have Taken the Fun Out of Sports (and How We Can Get It Back) Written by Will Leitch. Published by HarperCollins, 2008.

If you would like a truly fresh and hilarious perspective on the protests surrounding the passing of the Olympic torch, pick up a copy of Will Leitch's book, God Save the Fan, and read his essay concerning the Olympics that starts on page 97. Leitch wrote the book long before the Chinese oppression of Tibet became the main focus of the upcoming Olympic games, but after you read his essay and after you finally suppress the resulting laughter, you may find yourself wondering why there is so much fuss over the passing of this silly torch.

Please don't misunderstand me. I am virulently opposed to Communist China and their oppression of Tibet. The boots that I am wearing right now were made in Texas, not in Communist China, and I doubt that many of my readers can make the same claim regarding their current footwear. My buying decisions for years have been, when at all possible, anti-China. But as Leitch points out in his book, a great number of us just do not care much about the Olympic games anymore, and we would not at all be unhappy if the United States just walked away from the games. It is quite possible that our apathy for the Olympic games would be mistakenly understood by the world as a bold move for Tibetan democracy. For once in world history, boredom and apathy would make an unwavering stand against oppression.

But this article is not written to discuss Olympic politics, but to discuss the very enjoyable book, God Save the Fan. Leitch is able to combine insightful commentary with irreverent hilarity in a way that would make Dave Barry jealous. And the great thing about his commentary is that it is all about sports and it is all from the perspective of a true sports fan.

With apologies to the leftist anti-war crowd, I will steal and bastardize one of their favorite mantras: “Ackerman lied, health care freedom died.” Now that I have said it, I have to admit that it does not have all of the fluidity of the anti-war slogans. Maybe that is because “Ackerman” has three syllables and “Bush” has just one. Or maybe that is because you need to be a brainless leftist in order to construct a really enjoyable brainless slogan that can be chanted ad nauseam at rallies where people are not expected to do any critical thinking.

While I must admit that I have failed in my first effort at creating a moronic slogan, I will simultaneously claim success at revealing the duplicity of Drs. Ronald T. Ackerman and Aaron E. Carroll. You may have recently heard the breathless reporting concerning a recent survey of physicians in which they were purportedly asked if they favored a switch to a national health care plan. The story was first reported by Reuters on March 31^st and was subsequently picked up by all of the major news media. The leading line of the Reuters story is “More than half of U.S. doctors now favor switching to a national health care plan,” and that line has been faithfully repeated by every medium from MSNBC to ScienceDaily. Dr. Ackerman and Dr. Carroll are the authors of the Annals of Internal Medicine article and the survey upon which the Reuters report is supposedly based, and it is apparent that both Ackerman and Carroll are quite satisfied with this oft-repeated Reuters report even though their survey never actually asked the physicians if they favored switching to a national health care plan.

My first reaction upon hearing the story was to question why anybody would care about the results of such an absurd survey of physicians. The opinion of the physician in this discussion is only important inasmuch as the physician is a taxpayer just like me. If anything, the physician's opinion should be discounted in this discussion because the physician has a vested interest and his opinion is biased. In a democracy, public policy is decided by the body politic as a whole, not by an oligarchy of egotistical , spoiled brats who just happen to have the letters “M” and “D” after their names. I am certain that if I were to survey a large number of Internet bloggers and ask them if they would be interested in guaranteed government payments for their work regardless of the quality of the drivel that they slung into cyberspace, a large percentage of them would express a great deal of interest.

As often happens, my second reaction followed my first reaction, and my second reaction to the reports of this survey was that someone, somewhere was lying. Nothing in my twenty years of experience working with hundreds of physicians from all parts of the country and all parts of the world would lead me to believe that a majority of United States physicians would favor switching to a national health care plan. My second reaction was validated by my research and I discovered that the someone who is lying is actually two people: the duplicitous Dr. Ackerman and the duplicitous Dr. Carroll.

In an interview yesterday, a New Jersey Nets executive, Julianne Waldron, spoke candidly about the real reason behind the Jason Kidd trade to the Dallas Mavericks. On February 19^th of this year, the New Jersey Nets traded Jason Kidd, Malik Allen, and Antoine Wright to the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for Keith Van Horn, Devin Harris, Trenton Hassell, Maurice Agar, De Sagana Diop, first round draft choices in 2008 and 2010, and cash considerations. Many New Jersey Nets fans were very unhappy about losing Kidd, a long-time star and future Hall-of-Fame point guard.

Ms. Waldron, who manages environmental issues for the Nets, held a press conference to discuss last night's first “carbon-neutral” NBA game between the New Jersey Nets and the Philadelphia 76ers. The game was hosted by New Jersey, and all of the carbon emissions generated by fans and the 76ers traveling to and from the Izod Center will be offset by so-called “carbon emissions credits” purchased by the Nets organization and their partner Barclays, the British financial conglomerate. The game has been dubbed “Green Night” and also featured several environmental extremist groups providing propaganda to fans.

In referring to the “greening” of the New Jersey Nets franchise, Ms. Waldron said that “I believe that this will be our strategy for years to come. This is part of who we are. Many of our fans were unhappy when we traded away Jason Kidd to the Dallas Mavericks, but they should be happy because trading Kidd was the best move for the environment.”

Ms. Waldron went on to explain how the Kidd trade was the environmentally-friendly thing to do. “Jason Kidd always hustles when he is on the basketball court, and we all admire that greatly. But all of that running up and down the court, pushing the team out on fastbreaks, expending extra energy just to make a few extra points and possibly win a game, caused all of the players to breathe a great deal more heavily and thereby expel extra amounts of carbon dioxide into the air, and we all know that is bad for the environment. We made the difficult decision to trade Kidd in order to save the planet.”

Aspire Higher Avery Johnson, Roy... Best Price $17.13 or Buy New $17.13

Book Review: Aspire Higher: Winning on and off the Court with Determination, Discipline, and Decisions. Written by Avery Johnson with Roy S. Johnson. Published by HarperCollins, 2008.

On page four of his book, Avery Johnson tells the story of a young player that he recently had in training camp that was very good at numbers, but not so good at basketball. Avery's assessment was that the guy “needed to be on Wall Street, not in the NBA.” He summed up his assessment of the potential player by saying that “Basketball wasn't his gift – numbers were.” Unfortunately, a similar assessment of Avery Johnson must be made: Writing isn't his gift – basketball is.

Avery's current position as head coach of the Dallas Mavericks does leave me with a dilemma when the Mavericks play. While I am a great fan of Avery because he represents to me all that is good in the NBA, and I am always quietly rooting for his personal success, I simultaneously despise the asinine owner of the Mavericks and wish that they could lose every game. Regardless of Mark Cuban's existence in the equation, I have always admired Avery both for his playing, and now for his coaching, and I purchased his book because of that admiration. But Avery should stick to coaching. His writing simply is not of a quality that justifies the killing of trees.

Roy Johnson, editor-in-chief of Men's Fitness magazine, is the co-author of the book. One would assume that a purported journalist such as Roy Johnson was needed to co-author the book in order to add a degree of polish and writing style that might be missing from the skill set of your average NBA coach, but in the case of Aspire Higher, one's assumption would be wrong. Roy Johnson failed miserably in this endeavor. I must admit ignorance of any of Roy Johnson's other journalistic endeavors, so I am not certain as to whether he is just a horrendous writer, or if his “co-authoring” was limited to proverbially urinating on Avery's proverbial leg and telling him it was proverbially raining. Regardless of Roy Johnson's actual role in “co-authoring” this book, I would advise all retired athletes who are aspiring authors to steer clear of the co-authoring skills of Roy.

Martin often talked of the peculiarities of his family's religion. I use the word “peculiarities” because words like “first communion,” “confirmation,” and “holy water” were peculiar to me. My parents were devout Baptists, and although I did not yet understand everything that was spoken about in the Walnut Park Baptist Church, I was fairly certain that I had never seen holy water before, not to mention being sprinkled with it.

As I became older, I came to learn that Marty was a bit mischievous. Actually, with the perspective of forty-three years that I now have, I would have to say that he could be accurately described as devious. But I was a naïve four-year-old, and with child-like faith I just simply accepted as fact everything that he said, and you can imagine the honor that I felt when one day Marty decided to tell me a secret.

Marty told me that he had followed a priest into one of the rooms in his church without the priest knowing about it, and that he had watched the priest make holy water. And then Marty told me how the priest made the holy water and it made perfect sense to me.

Can you imagine the smugness with which I approached my mother later in the day? For the first time in my short life, I knew something that she did not know. Marty had told me that this knowledge of holy water manufacturing was a secret to be kept just between the two of us, but what four-year-old boy can keep a secret from his mother?

“Mommy, I know how the priest makes holy water,” I proudly proclaimed.

PART THREE IN A FOUR-PART POST*

One of the most discussed issues in America today is the theory of global warming, that is, the idea that man-made carbon gases are creating a greenhouse effect and that greenhouse effect is warming our planet. Please allow me to assure you right now that this article is indeed about alternatives to Lipitor, and not global warming. But in order to illustrate a point, let us suppose for a moment that you and I decided to have a debate about global warming, but before we began our debate, we decided that recorded history and trends in the earth's temperature were of no importance to the discussion, and that our debate would be limited to what is happening to the earth's temperature today. In addition to that peculiar rule of ignoring history in our debate, we decided that the debate would last twenty years. There were no other rules.

Let us also suppose that, unknown to you, I had invented a magical machine that could rid the earth's atmosphere of carbon. In this world of magical supposition, my motivation for winning our global warming debate had very little to do with saving the planet. I was only interested in selling my magical carbon-removing machine to every house in America and thereby making grotesque amounts of money. Indeed, large profits had been my motivation for intentionally framing our debate to exclude all previous history. I did not want people to be aware of any historical data that might indicate that there was no need for my magical carbon-removing machine.

Finally, let us suppose that throughout the twenty years of our debate, I did not really debate you at all. I simply wined and dined meteorologists. When the meteorologists wanted to go to trade shows and conventions in Hawaii and Belize, I paid for their trips. I took them golfing. I even paid the meteorologists large sums of money to be spokespersons for my magical carbon-removing machine. I showed the meteorologists the results of all kinds of controlled studies showing the benefits of my machine, and I was able to convince them that any danger to the environment that might be done by my machine was minor. Ten years into the period of our debate, people began to notice that trees and plants were becoming gradually weak and sickly, and eventually dying because they did not have enough of the carbon dioxide that was vital to them.

You may have already guessed that my magical carbon-removing machine is analogous to the magical cholesterol-removing pill, Lipitor, and regardless of Pfizer's claims to the contrary, I will insist that my analogy is totally valid. Pfizer does indeed wine and dine their doctors, they do indeed pay for doctor's trips to exotic places, Pfizer sales reps do indeed take doctors golfing, and doctors do indeed glibly accept Pfizer's assurances that the side effects of Lipitor are minor. Everyday more people are discovering that Lipitor is weakening them and Lipitor is indeed killing people. But the part of the analogy that I want to focus on is the idea that a debate can be framed in such a way as to completely ignore prior history.