Quick Hits

• Not much time left today, but happy birthday to Superman! I tried in vain to find a comic book cover of Superman (or even Clark Kent) celebrating his birthday, but since the day comes around so rarely, I didn't want to miss the opportunity. This is his 18th birthday, by the way.

• The new Martin Lawrence movie, College Road Trip, has been advertised as heartwarming? Martin Lawrence? Shouldn't that be heartburn? I've heard some rumors that this started out as a National Lampoon movie and somehow morphed into Disney G-rated fare. It might almost be worth it to see exactly how such a thing could work.

• There's a fair amount of activity around the political blogs today about Hillary Clinton's new fear-mongering ad in Texas. If you don't want to click through, it's got a phone ringing several times at 3:00 in the morning while children are sleeping. The announcer ominously tells us that "something's happening in the world," and we've got to choose who we want to have in the White House to answer the phone. The phone never stops ringing until the end of the ad and we see Hillary talking into the receiver. It's not clear until the end that it is, indeed, a Hillary ad, and I half expected to see John McCain pop up. Kevin Drum points out that the Republicans shouldn't be allowed to have the corner on security concerns and that the only way to expand the idea of competent Democrats is to take the initiative. Still, the tone and subject of the ad itself made me think of McCain rather than Clinton, so this particular ad may not be doing its job.

Obama came back quickly with his own version of the ringing phone, arguing that we want someone who's shown good judgment in the past about foreign policy picking up that phone. Comedy often works in threes, and since we've already got the first two parts of the set up, Mrs. Talk Talk Talk Talk Talk is expecting McCain's version any minute now. We hear the phone ring, but instead of panning over peaceful, sleeping children, it'll cut to McCain picking up on the first ring. "I'm on it." Sorry, but that one beats what either Clinton or Obama are going with at the moment.