SarcastiPundit

I don't think you understand the meaning of "fairly"

2012-01-19T12:34:00.002-06:00

This is a hilarious passage from an AP story:

One in eight people earning at least $1 million annually was audited by the Internal Revenue Service last year, making them far likelier to be examined than those making below $200,000, according to IRS data released Thursday.

Just 1 in 100 individuals earning less than $200,000 had their income tax returns examined, the IRS said.

The 12 percent of millionaire earners audited in 2011 was appreciably higher than the 8 percent who were audited in 2010. IRS officials said the high ratio was part of an effort to demonstrate that tax laws are applied fairly.

Of course, what it actually demonstrates is that tax laws are applied unfairly, extremely and ludicrously unfairly. The only fair application would be for no individual to be any more likely to be audited than any other, regardless of income or any other factor.

Truth in advertising

2012-01-19T12:26:00.002-06:00

Jay Nordlinger tells it as Cuba trip promoters would tell it if they were honest:

"A friend sends me this notice: The University of Michigan Alumni Association is preparing a trip to the Castros’ Cuba! Take advantage of the segregated beaches, restaurants, and hotels! (“Tourism apartheid,” some call it.) Enjoy a place where a single party rules! Where the media have only one point of view! Where dissenters are jailed and tortured! Where American aid workers are held hostage! And don’t forget the underage prostitution!

Oh, you’ll love your trip. Totalitarian Cuba is in some ways even better than Ann Arbor, which after all has a Republican party. Go Blue!"

Sons of Anarchy 11/15/11 Spoiler

2011-11-15T23:11:00.001-06:00

Lemonhead just can't seem to keep from getting himself blown up, can he?

What he said (neo segregation)

2011-11-05T12:52:00.002-05:00

Jay Nordlinger at NRO echoes a thought I often have:

The other day, I was reading about “the first Latino fundraiser for Obama’s candidacy.” The president was talking to “about 120 mostly Latino contributors.” And I thought, “Even our fundraisers are segregated now? Must everything in American life be divided up by ethnicity and race?”

I have an idea: How about separate drinking fountains and toilet facilities? Has anyone ever thought of that?

E pluribus unum — a great principle. We ought to think about adopting it and living it someday . . .

While on the subject, his Impromptus column is one of my favorite reads, hitting issues most pundits ignore.

DirecTV NBA League Pass and the lockout

2011-08-31T21:36:00.001-05:00

DirecTV sent this out via e-mail tonight:

Your NBA LEAGUE PASS™ subscription is set to automatically renew for the 2011-12 NBA Season. Due to the NBA's ongoing labor negotiations with the players' union, DIRECTV is offering all subscribers a no-risk policy. There will be absolutely no charge for your NBA LEAGUE PASS subscription until it is confirmed that the 2011-12 NBA Season will begin.

• A balance of $0.00 will show for the NBA LEAGUE PASS™ portion of your bill.
• Once an agreement is reached, your subscription will renew for six easy payments of $31.99 each, unless any games are cancelled from the season schedule.
• If games are cancelled, your bill and payment schedule will be adjusted accordingly.

For more information on NBA LEAGUE PASS™ during the work stoppage, please visit directv.com/nba.

Carbon emissions are more dangerous than I thought!

2011-08-31T19:40:00.002-05:00

Thanks to James Taranto for the pointer to this beautiful piece from the Guardian:

Aliens may destroy humanity to protect other civilisations, say scientists
Rising greenhouse emissions could tip off aliens that we are a rapidly expanding threat, warns a report

It may not rank as the most compelling reason to curb greenhouse gases, but reducing our emissions might just save humanity from a pre-emptive alien attack, scientists claim.

Watching from afar, extraterrestrial beings might view changes in Earth's atmosphere as symptomatic of a civilisation growing out of control – and take drastic action to keep us from becoming a more serious threat, the researchers explain.
[...]
"Green" aliens might object to the environmental damage humans have caused on Earth and wipe us out to save the planet. "These scenarios give us reason to limit our growth and reduce our impact on global ecosystems. It would be particularly important for us to limit our emissions of greenhouse gases, since atmospheric composition can be observed from other planets," the authors write.

It's science! Little green men are green in more ways than one.

Mid August overflow

2011-08-16T11:32:00.003-05:00

A few things I've run across that are too long to fit on Twitter, which has all but killed my blogging:

James Taranto: “Times have changed. In the 1930s, government was small. Expanding it massively in order to solve problems might or might not have been a good idea, but there's no denying it was innovative. Today government is sclerotic. Those who believe more government is the solution to America's problems are at best unthinking reactionaries. The Tea Partiers, having clearly identified this problem, are today's true progressives (to employ the term in its literal rather than ideological sense).”

I have long made variations on this same theme, especially with regard to Social Security.

******

More Taranto: “Obama's failure is the failure of the liberal elite, and that is why their ressentiment has reached such intensity. Their ideas, such as they are, are being put to a real-world test and found severely wanting. As a result, their authority is collapsing. And if there is one thing they know deep in their bones, it is that they are entitled to that authority. They lash out, desperately and pathetically, because they have nothing to offer but fear and anger.”

Watching leftists try to explain away the failure of their policy ideas has served as a bit of dark comedy, but it hardly takes away the sting of having to live under said policies.

******

Jack Kelly: “Boiled to its essence, Progressivism is the belief that government knows best. More specifically, that government in the hands of such wise and public spirited people as Progressives imagine themselves to be knows better how to run businesses than do the men and women who own them; knows better what's good for ordinary people than the people do themselves….

The failure of their policies to improve the lives of most Americans didn't trouble Progressives much, because their focus changed. What was good for teacher unions became more important than what was good for students. What was good for public employee unions became more important than whether bureaucracies were serving the public well. To Progressive politicians, the votes of minorities became more important than their economic well being.”

I think this is exactly right: trying to argue specific policy ideas with them based on the results they produce is fruitless, because they do not care what the outcome of policies are. What is important to them is feeling like you are doing something good, and more importantly being able to convince interest groups that you mean them well. Feelings vs results is the “Mars and Venus” aspect of so much political discussion in this country, why neither side even understands the other.

******

Richard Miniter: "Obama is not the new FDR, but the new Gorbachev: a man forced to preside over the demise of a political system he desperately wants to save,"
Indeed, the line has been going around about how ironic it would be if Obama is the guy who finally discredits socialism (don’t hold your breath, that people still believe in it today shows that it is more religion than reasoned worldview).

******

Jay Nordlinger: “Question: If a state votes for lions of early-’70s liberalism, Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer, over such forward thinkers as Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina — not to mention those challengers’ entrepreneurial credentials — doesn’t the state kind of deserve what it gets?”

Indeed it does, Jay.

******

The dishonesty of Chris Matthews knows no bounds. He correctly quoted a 1987 Reagan speech:

"Congress consistently brings the government to the edge of default. ... This brinkmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits. Interest rates would skyrocket, instability would occur in financial markets, and the federal deficit would soar. The United States has a special responsibility to itself and the world to meet its obligations."

Without quoting the rest of the passage, making clear the meaning:

"For those who say more taxes will solve our deficit problem, they are wrong. Every time Congress increases taxes, the deficit does not decrease, spending increases. It's time for a clear and consistent policy to reduce the federal budget deficit. ... You don't need more taxes to balance the budget. Congress needs the discipline to stop spending more, and that can be done with the passage of a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. ... But I ... will not permit Congress to dismantle our national defense, to jeopardize arms reduction or to increase your taxes. I am determined that will not happen."

Until next time...

Wait, who's in office now?

2011-07-29T13:20:00.003-05:00

Hypocrisy busts are too easy, but this one is so devoid of principle I cannot resist (hat tip @jamestaranto):

* "This theory of presidential power argues, in essence, that when the President acts in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief, he may make his own rules and cannot be bound by Congressional laws to the contrary. This is a theory of presidential dictatorship. These views are outrageous and inconsistent with basic principles of the Constitution as well as with two centuries of legal precedents. Yet they were the basic assumptions of key players in the Bush Administration in the days following 9/11."--Jack Balkin, Yale Law School, March 3, 2009

* " 'At the point at which the economy is melting down, who cares what the Supreme Court is going to say?' Professor Balkin said. 'It's the president's duty to save the Republic.' "--New York Times, July 25, 2011

He was against dictatorship before he was for it!

Longest MLB losing streaks

2011-07-27T18:32:00.004-05:00

Thanks to SABR member Frank Vaccaro for this list (EndDate is the date of the win that broke the streak):

Rank Streak Team League Season StartDate EndDate
1 31 BKN na 1875 5/29-10/9
2 26 LOU aa 1889 5/22-6/23
3 24 CLE n 1899 8/26-9/18
4 23 PIT n 1890 8/12-9/4
23 PHI n 1961 7/29-8/20

6 22 PHI aa 1890 9/16-10/12
7 21 BAL a 1988 4/4-4/29
8 20 LOU n 1894 5/28-6/19
20 BOS a 1906 5/1-5/25
20 PHI a 1916 7/21-8/9

20 PHI a 1943 8/7-8/24
20 MON n 1969 5/13-6/8
13 19 BOS n 1906 5/17-6/9
19 CIN n 1914 9/5-9/23
19 DET a 1975 7/29-8/16 (Frank's wife's birthday!)

19 KC a 2005 7/28-8/20
17 18 CIN n 1876 7/11-8/25
18 LOU n 1894 8/15-9/6
18 STL n 1897 9/3-9/27
18 PHI a 1920 6/8-6/28

18 WAS a 1948 9/3-9/19
18 WAS a 1959 7/19-8/5
23 17 WAS n 1894 5/3-5/29
17 BOS a 1926 8/20-9/8
17 NY n 1962 5/21-6/8

17 ATL n 1977 4/23-5/12
17 SEA a 2011 7/6-7/27

Don't stop there, NY

2011-06-26T13:16:00.002-05:00

David Burge aka Iowahawk was on fire with some suggestions for the state of New York to pursue if they really give a damn about civil rights on his twitter feed (@iowahawk) yesterday, with some additions from his followers:

I think NY's married gay couples should be able to carry handguns legally.

I think NY's married gay couples should be free to smoke within 30 feet of a public building.

I think NY's married gay couples should be free to smoke, drink sugared soft drinks, and eat salty snacks with transfats.

I think NY's married gay couples should never have to pay more than 20% of their income to government.

I think NY's married gay couples should be able to open businesses without paying for 800 permits and licenses.

(From @KurtSchlichter) I think NY's married gay couples should be free of the burden of trillions in deadbeat-subsidizing federal debt. #Caring

(From @KurtSchlichter) I reckon that none of NY's married gay couples should have to pay one plum nickel to fund cowboy poetry slams. #Caring

(From @KurtSchlichter) I think NY's married gay couples should be able to protect themselves from homophobes by lawfully carrying concealed handguns

I think that If NY's married gay couples adopt kids, they should have a choice where to send them to school.

I think NY's married gay couples shouldn't be forced to pay for the fat pensions of NY's army of overpaid government time-wasters.

(From WAMK) I think that NY's married gay couples shouldn't have to gaze at their new marriage certificates under a CFL bulb.

(From @jtLOL) NY's married gay couples should be able to eat their own wedding cake without Bloomberg slapping it out of their hands.

I believe married gay couples in NY have the right to buy a gas-guzzling SUV.

A CFL mea pulpa

2011-06-18T12:17:00.002-05:00

Glenn Reynolds aka Instapundit was one of the first vocal supporters of replacing incandescent light bulbs with CFL's. It didn't turn out quite as well as he had hoped:

I have to say I’m deeply, deeply disappointed with CFL bulbs. I replaced pretty much every regular bulb in the house with CFLs, but they’ve been failing at about the same rate as ordinary long-life bulbs, despite the promises of multi-year service. And I can’t tell any difference in my electric bill. Plus, the Insta-Wife hates the light. I’ve had somewhat better luck with LED bulbs, of which I have a couple, but though the longevity is better, the light is still inferior.

So, to review...inferior light, higher up-front cost, no savings during usage, no savings from lasting longer.

Oh, and he forgot to mention the hazardous waste methods of disposing of broken bulbs, hope you don't have kids or pets!

How is it that this gratuitous transfer of wealth from consumers to major light bulb manufacturers has been allowed to stay on the books?

Inside the box score, NO G1

2011-04-18T16:34:00.002-05:00

A few things that stand out looking at the traditional and advanced box from game 1:

NO wins the paint, 52-34. I cannot tell you how unacceptable that is. We should be winning the paint easily in this matchup, that is a huge failure on both ends of the floor. To emphasize, they outshot us 24-14 at the rim and 15-12 in the 3-9 foot range, while we took more from every perimeter zone.

NO turned it over only 3 times in the game, tying the best mark for a playoff game over the last two decades. Never more than once a quarter, none in the 4th. That I have less problem with, even if you take care of the ball well that takes a big chunk of luck.

Kobe took only 2 threes, perfect. Lamar took 5 of them. I have called for no more than 4 from them combined, so you know how I feel about 5 from one of them. Threes must be taken in the offense, off swinging the ball and/or inside out play. Stepping into one early in the clock is soft and stupid basketball.

Only 9 of 38 offensive rebounds (24%), including 0 for Pau. That percentage needs to be well into the 30's with the size advantage we have and with them slipping into zones at times. We did take care of the defensive glass very well (32/36, 89%).

Kobe was 10/17 from 15 feet and in, 3/9 from 16+. Unless up against the shot lock, no need to settle for the long jumper.

Similarly, Fish took six long 2's and only one 3. I'd like to see more 3's and fewer 2's out there, again unless against the clock.

To continue the shot selection theme, Lamar took one two pointer (and made it).

I'll give some praise to Shannon on the offensive end, he attacked and took 3 of his 6 shots at the rim. On the defensive end...did I mentioned he attacked on offense?

Their bench was 16/22, that just cannot happen. This is a team whose only quality depth has been Landry (now starting for West) and Jack.

Fish had to play 39 minutes with Blake out and Trey not really ready to play in this kind of game, as well as with Barnes not really being ready to go. We will need him later, have to get that down.

Nothing here that isn't correctable, we just need to get back to playing inside out on offense and getting back on defense, and force them to take mostly midranges off screen roll. A little urgency from Pau and Lamar would be welcomed as well, and I don't want to hear another GD word about unisex perfume or reality TV shows.

We also need to avoid crunch time, despite the cliche their guy (and by extension their team) is just way better than ours in the clutch. That should not be a problem, we have enough of a front line advantage to have these games put away by that 5-6 minute mark.

The despicable UN

2011-03-02T11:06:00.002-06:00

Nice catch by James Taranto, excerpting comments praising Libya's human rights record from some of the gallery of murderers that is the UN Human Rights Council:

Sudan noted the country's positive experience in achieving a high school enrolment rate and improvements in the education of women. The Syrian Arab Republic praised the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for its serious commitment to and interaction with the Human Rights Council and its mechanisms. . . . North Korea praised the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for its achievements in the protection of human rights. . . . Palestine [sic] commended the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for the consultations held with civil society in the preparation of the national report. . . . Saudi Arabia commended the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya's achievements in its constitutional, legislative and institutional frameworks. . . . Venezuela acknowledged the efforts of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya to promote economic, social and cultural rights, especially those of children. . . . Cuba commended the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for the progress made. . . . Myanmar commended the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for its economic and social progress.

Why do we continue to pretend that the UN is a legitimate geopoltical organization? Why do we fund it? Isn't it time it joined the League of Nations in history's dustbin?

NBA rock-paper-scissors

2011-02-15T14:10:00.003-06:00

I think I agree with this John Hollinger take on the virtual version of rock-paper-scissors that we will have in the NBA playoffs this year:

If you're handicapping the race for the title, it also sets up a rock-paper-scissors situation among the contenders. I think Boston likes playing Miami more than trying to handle L.A. or San Antonio. I think Miami would much rather face L.A. or San Antonio than Boston. And I think L.A. or San Antonio would much rather face Boston than see Miami in the Finals.

I agree that the Lakers would MUCH rather play Boston than Miami, and would add that they would rather play San Antonio than Dallas in the West. Although they are very likely to have to beat both of them, unfortunately.

Jew baiting in The Guardian

2011-02-15T13:59:00.002-06:00

James Taranto catches a hilarious correction in London's Guardian:

A quote by Tzipi Livni, Israel's former foreign minister, within a panel that formed part of the Palestine papers, was cut in a way that may have given a misleading impression. The quote appeared as: "The Israel policy is to take more and more land day after day and that at the end of the day we'll say that it is impossible, we already have the land and cannot create the state." To clarify, the full quote is: "I understand the sentiments of the Palestinians when they see the settlements being built. The meaning from the Palestinian perspective is that Israel takes more land, that the Palestinian state will be impossible, the Israel policy is to take more and more land day after day and that at the end of the day we'll say that it is impossible, we already have the land and cannot create the state." (What they said ... 24 January, page 4.)

See, the actual quote is a Livni describing Palestinian propaganda, but the paper edited it to present the Palestinian propaganda itself! Hilarious (in a macabre sort of way) example of the fundamental anti-Semitism that is so matter of fact on the European left.

The issues and implications of START

2011-01-04T12:24:00.003-06:00

Great stuff from the scrupulously nonpartisan intelligence consultants Stratfor on START and the issues of nuclear proliferation/disarmament/defense. Read the whole thing, but there's a particular point I wanted to highlight:

The number of weapons may affect budgetary considerations and theoretical targeting metrics, but the danger of nuclear war does not derive from the number of weapons but from the political relationship between nations.

This cannot be overstated. Nuclear war will not be one iota less likely if the US massively disarms. It will, on the other hand, be at maximum likelihood if it completely or near completely disarms, or if rogue nations gain nuclear power of their own. The idea that nuclear arms reduction has any effect on the possibility of nuclear war is anachronistic at best; more accurate adjectives would include childlike, unserious.

Continuing on that theme:

New START is therefore as archaic as the Treaty of Versailles. It neither increases nor decreases security. It addresses a security issue that last had meaning more than 20 years ago in a different geopolitical universe. If a case can be made for reducing nuclear weapons, it must be made in the current geopolitical situation. Arguing for strategic arms reduction may have merit, but trying to express it in the context of an archaic treaty makes little sense.

Busted

2010-12-20T18:01:00.003-06:00

James Taranto does a great job of exposing media hypocrisy, usually (but not always, as today) under the heading of "Two ___ in One!" Today he caught the execrable Cynthia Tucker describing herself as taking the "Rovian low road":

* "McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, have themselves followed the Rovian low road by questioning Obama's patriotism."--Cynthia Tucker, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Oct. 26, 2008

* "There is simply no modern precedent for the behavior of Republicans in the U.S. Senate. They are not only hyper-partisan, but they are also petty, petulant and unpatriotic."--Cynthia Tucker, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Dec. 20, 2010

Stop calling me Shirley

2010-11-29T22:48:00.001-06:00

Frank Drebin: It's the same old story. Boy finds girl, boy loses girl, girl finds boy, boy forgets girl, boy remembers girl, girl dies in a tragic blimp accident over the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day.

Jane: Goodyear?

Frank: No, the worst.

Chamber of Commerce data

2010-10-21T13:21:00.003-05:00

Common sense told me the Chamber of Commerce attack was all BS, but I never was sure how much so. Thanks to Jack Kelly, now I do:

Led by President Barack Obama, Democrats are trying to make campaign finance an issue, by charging — without a shred of evidence — that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is funding its advertising campaign in part with foreign money.

The flimsy basis for this charge is the Chamber has overseas affiliates for which it charges dues. Revenue from these dues amounts to less than $100,000 a year. The Chamber's budget this year is about $200 million. The Chamber plans to spend about $50 million on independent advertising this year, mostly on behalf of Republicans.

So calling it BS was an undersell; this was a fairy tale of epic proportions.

Foreign revenue amounts to only 0.0005 (1/20 of 1%) of their overall budget, and .002 (1/5 of 1%) of their advertising budget this year (not all of which is on Republicans, so that overstates it some).

The president has established himself as a hyper-partisan attack dog, but even in that context this fable diminishes him and the office. This level of sleaze is best left for the Alan Graysons of the world.

Mr. President, you're better than that.

The entire column is worth a read, as he also addresses special interests and influence buying in elections. The, ummm, money quote:

The funding of our politics chiefly by special interests is one big reason why we're falling off a fiscal cliff. For an expenditure of millions, special interest groups — be they labor unions or Wall Street bankers — reap billions in taxpayer subsidies.

Our politicians respond more to the special interests which provide them with money than they do to constituents who can provide them only with votes.

This is the problem with the Leviathan state, and why it is the biggest threat to our freedom. It is way too easy to bribe politicians into stealing our money to pay back the bribers.

1994 v 2010

2010-10-20T11:40:00.002-05:00

James Taranto opens his Tuesday BOTWT with an insightful comparison of the 1994 and 2010 political environments.

I was especially struck by this Gingrich-Obama parallel:

Speaker Newt Gingrich, meanwhile, had something of an Obama problem: Having run a stunningly successful campaign, he was too full of himself, overambitious and insufficiently disciplined to do his new job well.

Spot on.

Also, the obvious theme:

Some of the Democrats' biggest mistakes of 2010 have been the result of "learning the lessons of 1994." That year, the Dems failed to enact a ruinous and unpopular health-care "reform" package, and they got trounced in midterm elections. Somehow this year they convinced themselves that if they succeeded in enacting a ruinous and unpopular health-care "reform" package, things would turn out differently.

There is a staggering level of cognitive dissonance, and lack of self-awareness, in thinking that there is something wrong with the voters or their understanding of Obamacare.

The problem is the very idea. Americans would prefer to make their own medical and health decisions, not have them imposed by force by an overbearing federal government. That is something that is unlikely to change, given that decades of propaganda gone into selling the idea to multiple generations has failed.

Although I guess trying to make future generations dumber by giving teachers' unions free reign over education policy is a solid back up plan.

The UN regains relevance

2010-09-28T15:48:00.004-05:00

The UN has fallen pretty far in recent decades, having gone from a legitimate geopolitical organization to a recurring Jew-bashing conference.

But don't despair, they are working their way back to usefulness, as the Times of London reports:

The United Nations, tackling head-on the problem of what to do if an alien says "take me to your leader," is poised to designate a specific individual for the task. . . .

the UN is set to select an obscure Malaysian astrophysicist who is head of its little-known Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa).

Mazlan Othman will describe her potential new role next week at a scientific conference at the Royal Society's Kavli conference centre in Buckinghamshire. . . .

The UN has tried previously to contact alien life. The two Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977 carried a message from Kurt Waldheim, then secretary-general, saying: "We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship."

However, scientists are now embarrassed by Mr Waldheim's deployment as an interstellar envoy because it later emerged that he had been an enthusiastic member of the Nazi party.

Hat tip: James Taranto, whose added comment (end of column) is worth a look in addition.

Legal only in the sense of not being against the law

2010-08-24T17:49:00.004-05:00

Here is a hilarious passage from a typical regurgitation of DNC talking points by the New York Times wing of the party, in this case on Tom DeLay:

Mr. DeLay, the Texas Republican who had been the House majority leader, crowed that he had been "found innocent." But many of Mr. DeLay's actions remain legal only because lawmakers have chosen not to criminalize them.

Well, the Times editorial board certainly nailed this one.

I had grilled chicken breast for dinner. It is only legal for me to eat grilled chicken breast because lawmakers have chosen not to criminalize eating grilled chicken breast. Indeed, you might as well say that I am guilty of a crime, when you really think about it. For me to claim to be "innocent" would not really be honest, now would it?

Not to the editors of the Times, anyway.

A rare bit of candor

2010-08-11T12:00:00.002-05:00

In case you missed it, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs got caught being honest in an article that appeared yesterday:

"I hear these people saying he's like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested," Gibbs said. "I mean, it's crazy."

The press secretary dismissed the "professional left" in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, "They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we've eliminated the Pentagon. That's not reality."

Of those who complain that Obama caved to centrists on issues such as healthcare reform, Gibbs said: "They wouldn't be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president."

Not surprisingly, he was blistered by the, uh, professional left for his apostasy. Interesting that he was not there today, I guess they are trying to decide whether or not to cave in to the hard left's desire to Shirley Sherrod him.

Review and preview: Adam Morrison

2010-08-01T17:51:00.000-05:00

Strengths: Scoring, at the college level.

Weaknesses: Basketball, at the NBA level.

Last year: In 7.8 mostly garbage minutes over 31 games, he put up 2.4 points and rebound on awful shooting (.418 TS%) shooting, which combine into a 7.4 PER that was actually better than the year before. Played 13 minutes in 2 playoff games, and was actually pretty effective (8 points, 5 rebounds).

Next year: Is an unrestricted free agent who will look to keep his NBA career alive, with the D League or Europe also being possibilities. He will not be back with LA.

Morrison was apparently the funniest guy on the team, worked his ass off in practice, did not complain, was in all aspects a good soldier. He’s just not any good.

An unstoppable college scorer, he is one of those guys who are just not athletic enough for his game to hold up on the next level. His ability to come off screens, jab step, drive, the multitude of ways that scorers free themselves, they all disappeared when the defenders got a step quicker and jumped a few inches higher. Since he was always more scorer than shooter, that left him with nothing to fall back on offensively.

Defensively, he had never been asked to play any his whole life, but once asked the lack of athleticism and knowledge of technique doomed him from the start. Similarly, despite his height he was not going to get many rebounds that didn’t come right to him.

In an ideal world, scouts would have recognized him limitations and he would have been a late first round draft pick. Instead, his accomplishments at the college fooled Michael Jordan into taking him with the third pick, and after a disappointing rookie season he blew out his knee, ending any realistic chance that he could develop into a bench scorer of some usefulness.

Now, at the end of his rookie contract, his career may be over. At best, he will hang around in that end of the roster/D League zone for a while, or perhaps end up in Europe, where he still might be able to carve out a decent career.

Since he seems like a good guy and was popular with the team, I wish him the best, but I’m glad I don’t have to see him in a Laker uniform again.

Much ado about nothing?

2010-07-27T11:48:00.002-05:00

Andrew Enum in the NYT:

“Anyone who has spent the past two days reading through the 92,000 military field reports and other documents made public by the whistle-blower site WikiLeaks may be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss is about. I’m a researcher who studies Afghanistan and have no regular access to classified information, yet I have seen nothing in the documents that has either surprised me or told me anything of significance. I suspect that’s the case even for someone who reads only a third of the articles on Afghanistan in his local newspaper.”

I don't even pretend to have looked through the paper mountain that WL dumped, but I was already familiar with the things Enum cites in this piece, so maybe there really is no "there" there.

Not that it would excuse the extreme lack of ethics and general sleaze of the whole exercise, mind you.

Quick hits

2010-07-22T17:57:00.003-05:00

Some political quickies:

I’m sorry, I just fail to see how the exposure of a group of major media figures coordinating efforts to suppress news damaging to the Obama campaign and to propagandize in an attempt to get him elected is news. Are people seriously surprised to hear that this was happening? Could anybody have thought it was not?

***

Looks like one Obamacare lie has been exposed pretty quickly:

The Obama Administration will give Pennsylvania $160 million to set up a new "high-risk" insurance program under a provision of the federal health care legislation enacted in March.

It has quietly approved a plan submitted by an appointee of pro-abortion Governor Edward Rendell under which the new program will cover any abortion that is legal in Pennsylvania.

***

How perfect is it that the president of a former civil rights organization which, having become obsolete, devolved into a garden variety hate and grievance group is named…Ben Jealous? It’s downright eponymous.

***

Tom Sowell echoes my feelings on said organization: “[T]hat an organization like the NAACP, after years of fighting against genuine racism, should now be playing the game of race-card fraud is especially painful to see.”

***

More Sowell: “[Voting for Obama thinking that he would be a post-racial president] was an honest mistake of the kind that decent people have often made when dealing with people whose agendas are not constrained by decency, but only by what they think they can get away with.”

***

Jack Kelly on Obama’s curious decision to object to al Qaeda because, of all things, racism:

Objecting to al Qaida mainly because its leaders may harbor racial prejudices is kind of like objecting to Hitler mainly because he gave preference to tall blondes with blue eyes.

Al Qaida is objectionable because of the many murders it commits in pursuit of its Islamo-fascist ideology, which is objectionable enough in itself. The president's comments -- and more so those of his aide -- give the impression he'd think better of these terrorists if they had a diversity officer and an affirmative action program.

Barack Obama pledged to be America's first "post-racial" president. But in office, he's been more obsessed with race than any president since Woodrow Wilson, who imposed segregation on the federal government.

Review and preview: DJ Mbenga

2010-07-22T14:55:00.000-05:00

Strengths: Humanitarian work.

Weaknesses: Basketball, except for blocking shots as a help defender.

Last year: In 7.2 minutes over 49 games, he put up 2.1 points and 1.8 boards with 0.6 blocks on his typically poor shooting (.471 TS%) shooting. Put up an 11.6 PER, driven primarily by what was a good rebounding year for him. Played only 12 minutes in 4 garbage time playoff appearances, putting up 5 points and 5 boards total.

Next year: Is an unrestricted free agent who will look to make a team to serve as an emergency big, with the D League or Europe also being possibilities. He will not be back with LA.

First off, I have to point out that DJ is a great man. His father was murdered after a government overthrow in his native Congo (then Zaire), but was able to pay a bribe to secure his son’s release, after which DJ was able to escape to Belgium. His philanthropic and volunteer work in the land of his birth and his work with Basketball without Borders is the stuff of real heroes.

As a basketball player, he is a borderline NBA roster level guy. He is 7 feet tall, and you can’t teach that. He is a fine shot blocker. He plays hard, which sometimes leads him to be a little too eager to leave his man to go for the block and usually leads to too many fouls. He is a black hole but cannot shoot. His rebounding and man defense are not as good as you would want from a center.

I hope he is able to catch on somewhere, but as minimum wage laws destroy unskilled labor jobs, so the CBA’s requirement that the minimum salary increase with experience hurts the employment chances of marginal vets. I root for him, but fear that DJ will be one of its victims this fall, although he could still make his way back via the D League/10 day contract route.

Review and preview: Josh Powell

2010-07-15T12:01:00.000-05:00

Strengths: Can hit a jumper out to 18 feet or so. Is a willing and hard-working rebounder and defender. Has the respect of the team, beyond anybody save for Bryant and Fisher. Leader of the second unit in the way those guys are of the team as a whole. Always keeps himself prepared to play mentally and physically despite spotty usage.

Weaknesses: Lack of athleticism makes him a poor finisher and unable to handle quicker players he has to guard. Shot is more for show than an actual weapon. Not really a rotation-worthy NBA talent.

Last year: In 9.2 minutes over 63 games, he put up 2.7 points and 1.8 boards and had an off-year shooting (.407 TS%) shooting, although he did hit 7/16 from behind the arc for some reason. The shooting woes drove his PER down to a career worst and below replacement level 6.7. Played only 40 minutes in 13 playoff appearances, almost all garbage time, chipping in 9 points and 6 boards total.

Next year: Is an unrestricted free agent who may draw some token interest as teams look to fill out their rosters later on. A possibility for the Lakers to bring back at the minimum, but if he gets a better offer would likely take it. The poor shooting looks like a fluke, he should return to his career norm 10-11 PER level of play.

You can’t talk about Powell without using the word “respect”. The players respect him as a teammate and an all out practice player, the coaches respect him for his approach, readiness and professionalism (again, the anti-Farmar), and the fans respect him because it’s easy to see how much the team respects him. He is the only guy who really has the ear of Kobe and Fish, and may be the most popular guy in the locker room.

As a 4th-5th big to sop up some minutes for foul trouble and minor injuries, you can do a lot worse. When he has to be extended due to a longer-term injury situation, as he has with Bynum missing, he is not really up to the task, leaving the others playing more minutes than you would like. Ideally, he would be the 5th big with the team bringing in a vet like Kurt Thomas to be the 4th, but his popularity in the organization and doubt that there will be much of a market for his services combine to give him a decent shot at returning. And I don’t think anybody involved would be upset at that.

Kobe on Fisher

2010-07-11T12:45:00.002-05:00

Kobe's comments on Friday tell you all you need to know about why Derek Fisher will return to the Lakers: because Kobe will demand it.

"We need to have him back, it's as simple as that. It's not a question of if he will be back; it's a matter of when. I don't care what [the cost] is,They need to work that out and get him back because his significance to our ballclub and to me cannot be understated.

"He's our big-shot maker, he complements me in terms of leadership in the locker room because he's the guy that puts his arms around everybody and he's our emotional leader and that allows me to be the taskmaster. We need to get him back and have him be a part of this group and in the fold.

"I'm optimistic that it will happen but we got to get that done."

Review and preview: Shannon Brown

2010-07-05T13:14:00.001-05:00

Strengths: Athleticism, effort and attitude. He has freakish hops, which make him a great finisher on the break and allow him to bother taller shooters. He always brings it, never pouting about playing time or role, and that effort translates into solid defensive work for a backup wing. And he is the anti-Farmar in that he does what the coaches ask of him and is constantly trying to do whatever he can to help the team.

Weaknesses: His shooting is inconsistent. And he will sometimes settle for poor shots on the break or early in the clock, instead of working for something better. His decision-making comes and goes, as if he knows what to do but sometimes loses that in the excitement of the game. While a great finisher, does not make good decisions when leading the break.

Last year: in 20.7 minutes, he put up 8.1 points on subpar (.517 TS%, 32.8% from the arc) shooting, with nothing standing out in his other numbers enough to push his PER above 12.4. In the playoffs, he put up 4.9 points on poor (.474 TS%, 28.1% from distance) shooting, dragging his PER down to 9.7 and costing him some minutes to Sasha Vujacic at times. Solid work for a backup wing, but nothing more.

Next year: Opted out of the $2,149,200 second year of his BAE contract, and is thus a free agent. Will draw some interest and while the Lakers would like to have him back and he is willing to give them a discount, with the tendency to overpay role players off of champs (see Posey, James) there is a good chance he will not return.

He has been a valuable role player in his year and a half with the team, and his willingness to work on his game and take instruction have made him a favorite of the staff and team leaders. He has his limitations, but as a 15-20 minute backup wing you could do a lot worse, so I’d like to see him return. I’d like to see him work on his three point shooting, as the system leaves him open on the arc a lot and you have to make opponents respect your shot out there.

That said, with funds tight and offers probably coming after the big boys sign (and with some teams left with too much cash for too little available talent), I have a hard time coming up with a scenario whereby he comes back in this market. I like him and will hope for the best, but just not expecting it.

Review and preview: Jordan Farmar

2010-06-29T16:27:00.003-05:00

First of all, I’d like to thank Jordan Farmar for his four years as a Laker, and wish him well in his future career, as he will not be returning to the team for the 2010-11 season.

Strengths: He has really improved as an open shooter, up to 37.6% from the arc this year (40% in the playoffs). He finishes well, using his athleticism and touch around the rim. Defensively, he plays the passing lanes well.

Weaknesses: In short, decision-making. He overdribbles, breaks plays, makes poor decisions with the ball, and passes poorly (breaking Kobe’s finger this year being the worst example). After four years, he still does not understand some of the basic principles of the offense. Defensively, he is poor on the ball, gambles too much, and does not fight through screens well. Just a poor defensive player, who gets lit up by a lot of the league’s backup 1’s. And he has been a bit of a malcontent, defying and talking back to coaches and refusing to play within the system.

Last year: In 18 minutes, put up 7.2 points on decent shooting (.535 TS%) and not much else, leading to a 12.3 PER. Had the lowest assist and turnover rates of his career, suggesting that he was looking to get his more than in the past. In the playoffs, more of the same, 4.6 points on a .526 TS% in 13.1 minutes, 11.2 PER. He recovered some from the disaster of 08-09, but was still just so-so even for a backup point guard.

Next year: A restricted free agent if the Lakers tender a qualifying offer ($2,874,126) They likely will not, as they are looking to shed salary and probably would not want him back even at the QO price, much less match any offer above it. In short, his Laker career is over.

He ends his four year run with the Lakers as a guy who came with some potential, but after a solid sophomore season he regressed and ultimately really did not improve much from the day he joined the team. Fisher bashers have called for him to be a starter, but there’s nothing beyond faith (and hate) to suggest he would have been up to the job of playing crunch minutes on a championship team. All of the primary lineup combinations have been better with Fisher than with Farmar.

I always liked the kid, as despite his many run-ins with players and coaches he seemed from the outside to be a good kid. Sure, he’s make you yell at the TV over and over for his many gaffes, but I always hoped he would start to get it. Until we got far enough into this season for me to become resigned to the fact that it just wasn’t happening and he needed to go.

He wants to run his own team and play big minutes, and of course he wants to get paid. As well he should, with his first child on the way. But I fear that, while he will get paid at least once, he just is not as good as he thinks he is, and he will spend his career as a fringe starter on bad teams or a rotation guy on good ones (and that’s assuming he decides to get on board with future coaches). He’s just not one of the top 30 point guards in this league, no matter how you slice it.

I thank him for his contributions to two titles and another Finals appearance, and wish him the best as we bid him farewell.

Game 7 in the twitterverse

2010-06-27T11:59:00.001-05:00

Some tweets from game 7 that I would have retweeted/commented on had I not been so busy with, you know, game 7 of the Finals (times CDT):

8:14 @KDonhoops: Refs clearly want this series to go back to Boston.

8:14 @KevinDing: KG threw Pau down as Rondo scored. Pau tried to hit back at other end, then said something to refs as frustration mounted.

8:15 @MoBrooksESPN: Kobe, that was the most selfish possession in the history of hoops. Are you serious?

8:20 @haralabob: Bad sign when Bynum stays in longer than Wallace, good work on the conditioning Rasheed

8:21 @KevinDing: Just unbelievable contact going unwhistled here.

8:29 @ESPNLandOLakers: Excellent lead block from Garnett, not a very good basketball play, though. BK

8:31 @forumbluegold: The Lakers are losing their fundamentals on O and D. Over dribbling on offense and gambling for steals in transition defense.

8:33 @johnhollinger: Disaster of a first quarter for Lakers. Only a handful of their plays created high-% looks and they squandered most of the offensive boards.

8:34 @mcten: Celtics lead 23-14 after one. The Lakers are just 6-for-27 ... Make that 6-for-28, Michael Cooper just missed a promotional 3 between qtrs

8:34 @KevinDing: So far, Lakers an utter failure in trying to be poised and stay in character, as Phil hoped coming in

8:34 @ESPNStatsInfo: Laker MISSED more FG in the 1st qtr (21) than the Celtics took (10-17)

8:36 @johnschuhmann: 2nd least efficient Q of the series for LA. Worst was 4th on Tuesday & that was after the game had been decided.

8:40 @KDonhoops: Doc's made a huge mistake leaving Tony Allen out there with Kobe on the bench

8:41 @johnhollinger: LA was 6-of-27 from field and 1-of-4 from line in first, managing the nearly impossible feat of a True Shooting Pct. below 25.

8:41 @KevinDing: Farmar doesn't box out Rondo or even go for rebound. Then he leaks out and mad Sasha doesn't pass to him. Then jacks up quick 3.

8:47 @mcten: One bad habit that Ron could have picked up from Kobe: Leaving his feet before making a pass

8:47 @KDonhoops: I swear the offensive rebound rate for shots taken with less than a second on the shot clock has to be 99.9.

8:50 @johnhollinger: Nervous game -- both teams missing a ton of open shots right now, but these defensive mistakes are gonna get punished sooner or later.

8:50 @ESPNLandOLakers: Mercifully, we'll be spared any talk of one team "wanting it more." There's a lot of "want" going on out there. BK

8:50 @haralabob: Ray Allen is suffering on the offensive end by having to guard Kobe for 20-25+mins a night

8:51 @kpelton: Teams now shooting a combined 6-31 outside the paint (BOS 4-16, LAL 2-15). Combined 2-15 on 3s. #nerves

8:53 @johnschuhmann: The Lakers have taken 39 shots in 18 minutes. A pace for 104 shots in 48. Geez.

[Party like it’s 1962!]

8:55 @ESPNLandOLakers: Kobe playing like he might have had one cup of coffee too many before the game. AK

8:56 @junior_miller: The crowd should not chant "MVP" when Kobe is 2 for 9 from the field and 1 for 3 from the line

8:56 @ESPNLandOLakers: Pau makes the right pass, but sometimes you just have to go up through the double and try to get contact. BK

8:57 @mcten: Kobe is throwing screens around like they're going out of style. Big Baby his latest victim

8:57 @mcten: Ron Artest is the Lakers best player so far today. He was huge in the clincher against PHX too

8:58 @forumbluegold: If Kobe gambles for one more steal in the back court I'm going to go crazy. Rondo's his man. Find him and guard him please.

9:00 @AndrewCieslak: @KDonhoops Nice decision by ABC to black out 70% of the screen during Allen's free throws.

[The worst think networks can do is shrink the screen during any kind of game play, for graphics, interviews, or anything. No excuse, just poor, ignorant presentation.]

9:01 @WojYahooNBA: Only Artest could find a home in this brickfest.

9:02 @johnschuhmann: Lakers have actually shot worse in a half this season. 10-for-45 (.222) in 2nd half @ Denver on 11/13.

[That one was ugly: second half of a back to back roadie, at altitude. NBA’s worst scheduling situation.]

9:04 @LarryCoon: Kobe finally took a shot where he wasn't being molested by two Celtics.

9:05 @mcten: Ron Artest just asked Glen Davis if he knew he was Ron Artest

9:05 @ESPNLandOLakers: Wallace to D. Crawford: "Excuse me, referee, I speak Artest. I can break this up..." BK

9:07 @kpelton: OK, now I buy that Ray Allen has complained most in this series.

9:08 @johnhollinger: Brian Scalabrine, Josh Powell checking in because of the little-known rule that points at the end of the second quarter don't count.

9:09 @mcten: Brian Scalabrine and Josh Powell check in ... All 16 other NBA Finals Game 7s just scoffed and said they were better

9:09 @latmedina: Maybe Kobe really is right when he says he doesn't care about his legacy.....his shots aren't helping his case

9:10 @ESPNLandOLakers: PJ's halftime adjustments will mostly revolve around Xanax in the Gatorade. AK

9:10 @kpelton: I'm not sure the Lakers can win this game without Kobe Bryant rediscovering The Secret during halftime.

9:11 @haralabob: The celtics executed the first half of 2 for 1 possessions to end the quarter, but turned it over on the 2nd half each time.

9:12 @johnschuhmann: 1st Half -- Celtics: 40 points on 43 possessions. Lakers: 34 points on 43 possessions. Can't say I'm surprised.

9:12 @latmedina: Here's D Fisher's half-time speech: "Follow Ron Artest's lead."

9:14 @ESPNLandOLakers: Not even Jordan Hill-esque. AK RT @hoopshype: Not quite a Jordanesque performance by Kobe in the first half.

9:16 @KevinDing: Kobe has been saying over and over that it's all defense and offense doesn't matter b/c they can always score. Apparently not.

9:16 @ESPNStatsInfo: Lakers 34 1st half points is their fewest in any half this postseason. It matches their regular-season low for 1st half points as well

9:21 @LakersReporter: LA D was solid in the 2nd Q, but 3 fouls on the perimeter w/Boston in bonus, not 1 a shooting foul, gave C's 6 late pts.

9:21 @SI_ChrisBallard: Earlier in series, a BOS player told me he thought "some of those guys[Lakers] will crack when it comes down to it." We're about to find out

[So we did, and he had it backwards]

9:26 @KDthunderup: If Kobe lose, i said IF, will they talk bad about him like they did lebron???

9:27 @dexterfishmore: Why the rush to assess Kobe's "legacy"? Does ABC think he's dying?

9:28 @ESPNLandOLakers: Via stats and info: Lakers: 10-26 FG in the paint in first half BK

9:33 @russbengston: That shot not counting is what KG gets for blocking all those shots after the whistle. #douchebag

9:35 @junior_miller: Kobe has 22 minutes to pull his head out of his ass.

9:36 @KDonhoops: Lack of ball movement is killing Los Angeles' chances at defending their title.

9:36 @SI_LeeJenkins: No other way to say it: they’re choking

9:37 @SI_ChrisBallard: Never thought I'd say this, but Kobe Bryant needs to start playing more like Ron Artest right now.

9:40 @STEIN_LINE_HQ: If you thought Kobe took pounding after Game 7 in PHX in 2006, just wait til tomorrow ... unless this series has one more U-turn stored up

9:40 @johnhollinger: By the way, that last Kobe missed 3 came b/c Pau didn't even look to attack Sheed in a 1-on-1 post-up.

9:40 @franblinebury: Welcome to Starksville, Mr. Bryant (3-for-16).

9:41 @forumbluegold: BTW, that's maybe the 4th or 5th jumper where Kobe had an obvious hitch in his shot. No rhythm right now for Bean.

9:41 @ESPNStatsInfo: Of the 14 Finals Game 7s played in the shot-clock era the 74 1st half pts scored in this game are the fewest ever combined 1st half points.

9:42 @KDonhoops: Only way Kobe can make this right is to go D-Wade and do that for the rest of the game.

9:42 @johnhollinger: Remember when I said Kobe should be series MVP even if Lakers lose? Uh, what I meant to say was, unless he's the reason they lose.

9:42 @bomani_jones: I think paul pierce just tore his rotator cuff. Or he just needs to adjust his jersey. I can’t tell.

9:43 @mcten: Last time the Lakers played this poorly? Either Game 4 vs. OKC or that road loss in Charlotte

9:43: @DuranLA: RT Son on MJ / @SASBMJ: NO ONE & I mean NO ONE should EVER compare kobe Bryant to my dad an say that he is anywhere near close

9:44 @johnhollinger: Has an assistant coach ever won Finals MVP before?

9:45 @junior_miller: T-minus 19 minutes for Kobe to remove skull from anus. He's pulling one of the greatest choke jobs in Finals history so far.

9:46 @LakersReporter: Boston's been almost exclusively using isolation plays here, getting another hoop from KG that was answered by Fish's J.

9:50 @johnhollinger: Those last two forced shots by Rondo, by the way, came after the Lakers bottled up curl plays designed for Ray Allen.

9:54 @KevinDing: Sheed fouled Pau there b/c he was mad (and jolted) by Pau's elbow to gut upon posting up.

9:54 @johnhollinger: That was bizarre... all the players assumed there would be a timeout but there wasn't. Nine guys were off court and Joey waved them back on.

9:56 @mcten: Artest is stronger than an ogre

9:58 @forumbluegold: That's what Gasol needs to do on every play - sprint into the post. And that's what LO needs to do on every play. Attack the O-glass.

9:59 @mcten: KG just got away with a forearm to the back of the head

9:59 @sethpo: Good thing shot-making isn't important part of basketball or this game would be ugly

10:00 @mcten: It's only appropriate that Scalabrine's championship highlight will be a 24-second violation

10:01 @ESPNLandOLakers: Who knew Kendrick Perkins had been hurting Boston's D so much this season? AK

10:01 @KevinDing: We're headed to Q4 with Celtics ahead, 57-53. Bryant, Artest, Pierce, Allen and Rondo have all already logged 33+ minutes.

[Predicted what was coming, huh?]

10:01 @mhaubs: Rasheed Wallace remembering tonight that he should have been the best low-post scorer of his generation.

10:02 @ESPNLandOLakers: Big Shot Jackpot guy misses by 58 feet. 20,000 fans worry it's an omen. BK

10:02 @jon_e_nichols: Zero complaints about this game. I'm more impressed by players playing their hearts out despite their struggles than I am by hot shooting.

10:03: @johnhollinger: This reminds me so much of Gm 7 Spurs-Pistons. San Anto rallied in fourth in that one. Queens duo keeping LA close enough to do same here.

10:03 @LakersReporter: Be interesting to see how the coaches manage minutes here. Players have to be tired after 3 slug-fest quarters.

10:05 @KevinDing: That's why Doc was reluctant to play Big Baby this series. Lakers can just go over him, as Pau just did.

10:05 @russbengston: Kobe is definitely getting other people involved tonight. Unfortunately, most of them are Celtics.

10:10 @johnhollinger: I'll put it this way: If Shannon Brown fouled Rondo, then Kevin Garnett sure as heck fouled Artest.

10:11 @skindoeshoops: This Game 7 is about as classic as the last decade of the Rolling Stones' output

10:12 @ESPNLandOLakers: Lakers guards have to recognize when Pau is trailing Garnett up the floor, and tighten up on Rondo so he can't make the lob. BK

10:12 @skindoeshoops: Well, if the NBA is fixed then Kobe is in on it RT @RicBucher If no one has said it, I will: Kobe is having a nightmare.

10:14 @junior_miller: This series has been such high quality ball--until tonight. It's like a mid-90's Knicks-type game. T-minus 9 min for Kobe to wake up

10:14 @KDonhoops: Kobe is 1-2 on getting those Kevin Durant calls tonight.

10:18 @forumbluegold: Man. That hump LA needs to get over is like Mt. Everest right now.

10:18 @STEIN_LINE_HQ: Is it safe yet to call this one of those Artest > Ariza nights?

10:19 @forumbluegold: I understand now. The refs were saving all their calls for the 4th quarter.

10:21 @RicBucher: We’re used to Kobe putting teams away. He’s keeping the Celtics in this one.

10:21 @kpelton: Glen Davis +6, Rasheed Wallace +1. Wallace's fifth foul isn't the worst thing in the world.

10:21 @basketballtalk: maybe putting the Lakers at the free throw line is the best thing Boston can do

10:23 @mcten: The Fisher Fling returns to its kingdom

10:24 @mcten: Like in Game 3, the plays being made down the stretch for L.A. are by people not named Kobe Bryant

10:25 @EricPincus: Derek Fisher just passed Michael Jordan on all-time NBA FInals made three-pointers 43 for DFish, 42 for MJ

10:26 @bruce_arthur: KG, 7-12. Fisher, 4-6. Baby, 2-4. Everyone else: 35-114.

10:26 @DanWolken: The 2008 Memphis Tigers think the Lakers can’t shoot free throws.

10:29 @johnhollinger: I'm a little puzzled Boston is running so much stuff for Ray Allen and so little for Paul Pierce.

10:30 @mhaubs: In a game of incredible defense, Ray Allen is one of the few to have several good looks. Killin' the C's right now.

10:32 @junior_miller: Alert: Kobe's head is now back on his shoulders! He's got 20 and 13--and the lead. He's saving his reputation like he did his marriage

10:32 @LarryCoon: You just know some hater is going to say Kobe intentionally sucked for three quarters so he could be the hero in the fourth.

10:34 @LakersReporter: Cannot stress enough how critical the crowd has been here for L.A.’s defense, willing stop after stop.

10:34 @RicBucher: On the flip side: Kobe w/15 rebounds. Putting his imprint on game even w/ shot not falling.

10:34 @MFollowill: @skindoeshoops the power of Hennessy

10:34 @mcten: Feels like 19,000 people just undid their belts and unzipped their pants after Thanksgiving dinner ... the pressure's been released

10:36 @ESPNLandOLakers: This game could be the most persuasive argument ever for shortening the regular season. BK

10:37 @joe_sheehan: “Big Shot Rob,” meet “Big Swish Fish.”

10:38 @KevinDing: No idea what Pierce is doing with that blocking foul.

10:41 @KDonhoops: Soft?

10:42 @KevinDing: Driven into the weight room by the 2008 NBA Finals loss, Pau muscles the double-clutch layup in. Lakers 76, Celtics 70 ... 1:30 left.

10:42 @KDthumderup: Toughhhhh pau, touughhhhh

[That’s Kevin Durant]

10:43 @skindoeshoops: If the Lakers had been playing like this earlier in the game would this even be close right now?

10:45 @mcten: Remember, Sheed was on that 2000 Blazers team that wilted in the 4th quarter in this building

10:45 @Kenny_Maybe: Consolation game begins 30 minutes after conclusion of Celtics vs Lakers.

10:45 @SI_LeeJenkins: As ugly as it's been, the banner won't look any different

10:47 @ESPNLandOLakers: This game was played in Bizarro-World. AK

10:48 @KDonhoops: I ask again, soft?

10:48 @KDthumderup: Pau gasol for finals MVP…without him u lose!!

10:48 @tomhaberstroh: Kobe just made two TERRIBLE decisions with the game on the line.

10:48 @MFollowill: Rasheed and Ron Artest raining cold blooded 3's w/ a title on the line...somebody hold me I'm scared

10:51 @ESPNStatsInfo: Celtics blew 15 double-digit leads during the regular and postseason. That's the 2nd most in the NBA only to Memphis (17)

10:52 @mcten: Like one of those 30 for 30 ads: "What if I told you the Lakers season would come down to 2 Sasha Vujacic free throws?"

10:53 @haralabob: Very few coaches use a great FT shooter off the bench in these late game scenarios - but its always a treat when they do

10:59 @MFollowill: Sasha Vujacic icing a finals at the line...somebody hold me, I'm really scared now

10:59 @SI_ChrisBallard: Ron Artest just thanked his psychiatrist on national TV. Then hugged Doris Burke. Man, I love Ron Artest

11:01 @hoopshype: So last points of season came from Artest, Wallace, Rondo on a 3 (!) and Vujacic. NBA: Where amazing happens

11:03 @KDonhoops: Why Kobe Bryant's wife gets to stand in front of someone who works as hard as Frank Hamblen, I'll never understand.

11:04 @russbengston: The podium should be Stern and Lakers players/coaches/execs ONLY. Shameful.

[Could not agree more with the previous two tweets]

11:04 @johnschuhmann: Lakers didn't have balloons, but they had a e-mail prepared to announce the parade. Was sent out just minutes after the buzzer.

11:11 @tomhaberstroh: So… Ron Artest’s psychiatrist: MVP?

11:11 @AndreHoops: Everything Kobe gets, he deserves--and he doesn't have to say anything publicly.. but he should buy his teammates cars 4 their work tonite.

11:11 @mhaubs: I picked ORL over LAL before season, ultimately b/c I thought Artest would kill em at some pt. The shrink killed me.

11:13 @MikeBacsik: From a Mavs perspective, DJ Mbenga is only a ring behind Bill Wennington. Watch out Bill!

11:14 @DuranLA: Rasheed Wallace outside of the refs locker room. Security telling him they're not coming out. Shed says "just wanna talk"

[The insanist of the insane]

11:17 @DuranLA: Sheed finally walks away to bus - IN FULL UNIFORM with sunglasses on

11:18 @chadmillman: Lakers money line, celtics to cover and the under: just like the wise guys drew it up.

11:22 @johnshuchmann: So they got ... 5 games for that $19M? RT @johnhollinger: Bombshell from Doc: "I don't know if Rasheed will ever play again."

11:25 @johnshuchmann: 4th quarter of Game 7 was the Lakers' 2nd most efficient Q of the series (30 points on 21 poss.)

11:32 @johnshuchmann: And the +/- leader for the series? Ron Artest: +40.

11:44 @johnshuchmann: Crazy tho. Artest's +/- by game: +26, 0, -12, +1, 0, +26, -1

11:48 @mhaubs: Phil said before series that KG-Gasol was key matchup. Pau outrebounded him 18-3 tonight.

11:58 @mcten: Daniel Artest screaming outside Lakers locker room: "What can they say about Ron right now!!!!!"

12:21 @johnshuchmann: Great job by BBarry on NBA TV calling Kobe out 4 forcing in 1st half. Asked him if PJ talked 2 him. Kobe: No. "I know when I'm f'ing up."

12:22 @johnhollinger: If you bet on Jeff Foster getting a prolonged shout-out from Ron Artest after winning Game 7 tonight, you are now a millionaire.

12:28 @johnhollinger: Fittingly, Artest walks off with the podium Wheaties Box, having replaced Brian Scalabrine as the greatest post-Finals interview ever.

1:22 @daldridgetnt: And holler if you had Ron and the Machine putting the game away in the last minute. I’ll wait over here.

1:24 @lazenby: On June 17th the Lakers franchise won its 17th professional basketball championship.

1:27 @dexterfishmore: For the series, the Lakers scored 1.06 points per possession to the Celtics’ 1.01.

1:35 @dexterfishmore: The list of NBA players with fewer rings than Adam Morrison is really, really long.

1:40 @THE_REAL_SHAQ: Congratulations Kobe, u deserve it. U played great. Enjoy it man enjoy it. I know what ur sayin "Shaq how my ass taste"

2:05 @mcten: Kobe's dad, Joe, came out of the tunnel headed towards the locker room and said to Jim Hill, "Now we start working on the other hand"

2:16 @derekfisher: Drive for 5 complete!!!

[Thanks for a great season, twitfam!]

Game 6 in the twitterverse

2010-06-17T11:21:00.002-05:00

Some tweets from game 6 that I would have retweeted/commented on had I not been so busy with, you know, game 6 of the Finals (times CDT):

8:19 @forumbluegold: Ron has a much better feel for Pierce early. Forcing him left and using his reach to bother his dribble. Forced that TO on a panicked pass.

8:19 @KDonhoops: Three assists on eight good makes for LA. It doesn't always have to be ball movement that leads to an assist.

8:25 @KDonhoops: Three bad closeouts, two on Artest threes, for Pierce thus far.

8:26 @kpelton: This series is like a person with amnesia. What happened last game is irrelevant.

8:29 @ESPNLandOLakers: Gasol genetically wired to make the right pass, even if it means feeding Artest in the corner. Worked twice so far. LA +8. BK

8:35 @KevinDing: Lakers really helping each other beautifully on defense, living up to promises. Only one instance where Artest wouldn't leave Pierce.

8:40 @KDonhoops: [Three] bad, unnecessary fouls for Sheed, nearly a [fourth], and he's still complaining and near a T even with Perk limping off the court. Unreal

[It's who he is, most selfish player in all of sports]

8:43: @mcten: Anybody remember Jordan Farmar diving to the floor for a loose ball when he got the start vs. Houston with Fish suspended last year? Deja vu

8:43 @kpelton: Will we see that Jordan Farmar dive as much as we saw Rondo's?

8:50 @ESPNLandOLakers: Lakers getting a lot of mileage out of Gasol distributing from the high post. BK

8:55 @KevinDing: Farmar throws down on KG and glares back at him while Spike Lee does a wild dance.

8:56 @KevinDing: Pierce gets layup. Phil not messing around, calls TO. Lamar looks at his teammates, pats chest and says: "My fault, my fault."

[Always loved that Phil will use his timeouts to get his team to play the right way, not insult them by thinking they need help managing a game]

8:59 @johnhollinger: Josh Powell in the game. DJ Mbenga's publicist crestfallen.

9:03 @forumbluegold: If Powell is going to play, he has to rebound. I couldn't care less about his missed jumper, but he's got to hit the glass hard.

9:11 @johnschuhmann: Celtics scored on just 14 of their 44 first half possessions.

9:13 @TheAdam9: If the Lakers come back to win the series, will this be the worst, or next to worst stab to the heart for Paul Pierce? (yes, I'm terrible)

9:19 @jadande: Think LA hasn't gotten more physical tonight? Christina Aguilera just elbowed me in the gut. I'm serious

9:32 @haralabob: C's defense is nearly 3 points worse on defense per 100 possessions with Perkins off the floor - no bueno

9:34 @DuranLA: Staples Center NBA Finals "Where Hot Chicks Eat McDonalds Behind the Stairs In White Dresses Happens"

9:41 @RicBucher: Not to rain on LAL, but only difference 2nite is effort. Nothing prevented them from playing w/more of this kind of ball movement, D in Bos.

9:41 @LakersReporter: LA radio voice Spero Dedes after Shannon Brown fastbreak dunk: "The Lakers have punched the bully in the mouth in Game 6."

9:47 @LakersReporter: The play Phil Jackson ran out of the time out to get Brown that oop has worked all season long, and last year too.

9:50 @marcel_mutoni: The Laker bench needs to watch an animated film before the presser. RT @SekouSmithNBA: Bench scoring: LA 21, Celtics 0!

[It ended 24-0 in the competitive portion of the game]

9:52 @KDonhoops: Ron Ron's perked up. Setting screens off the ball, good clear outs, entry passes, enthused. Almost child-like. Good to see. He's also nuts.

9:53 @forumbluegold: This is the Pau that was playing in the first 3 games. Welcome back to the low block, Big Spaniard.

9:58 @mcten: You know it's a team night when Jordan makes that swing pass to Sasha. Differences are being put aside for a common goal

9:59 @LarryCoon: Hard to imagine a nastier sideline trap than from Artest & Vujacic....

10:01 @mcten: Lakers lead 76-51 after three quarters. Phil said he had a good feeling about this one going into it. Trust the man's intuition

10:03 @LarryCoon: Halfcourt shooter for big cash prize was booed mercilessly for lousy shot. Doc Rivers, on the other hand, offered the guy a 10-day contract.

10:03 @ESPNStatsInfo: After 3 quarters, Garnett-Allen-Pierce-Rondo have scored all 51 points. Rest of the team is 0-9 from the floor

10:05 @KevinDing: I've said this before, but that was the same lazy pass that Farmar threw that broke Kobe's finger.

10:18 @KevinDing: I've said it before AND before. That was the same lazy pass that Farmar threw that broke Kobe's finger.

10:18 @KevinDing: And Jordy benched.

10:27 @KDonhoops: Let the record show that, before gar-bage time, BOS managed under 75 points per 100 possessions, 33 percent shooting.

10:33 @KDonhoops: Shelden Williams has the best plus/minus on the Celtics. #eatRawFishNotRawStats

10:41 @johnschuhmann: 67 points on 87 possessions for the Celtics. Don't think Kendrick Perkins' helps that.

11:46 @johnschuhmann: Celtics shot 33%. Their worst shooting game of the year (105 games) & second worst of last 10 postseasons (100 games).

11:48 @KDonhoops: Kobe gets it. He just does.

11:50 @johnschuhmann: Also the worst any team has shot against the Lakers this season.

12:05 @johnschuhmann: 10 FTA were Celtics' fewest of the season & fewest in the postseason since 5/2/92.

12:09 @johnschuhmann: Celtics' FTA game by game: 36, 26, 24, 23, 13, 10. I imagine they don't want that trend to continue on Thursday.

[After G1/G2 controversy, they have just stopped calling fouls for the most part. Which helps Boston, probably why they are still alive.]

12:48 @TrueHoop: Ron Artest on Shannon Brown's jumping ability: "He's got gifted fibers or something."

1:45 @Hoopdata: Boston's 36.3% eFG% on game overall is their second worst performance of the season (11/20 35.6% vs Orlando).

1:46 @Hoopdata: Boston's 75.3 OffEff their worst performance all year. Previous low was 83.0 (2x, vs Orl/Sac).

1:47 @Hoopdata: Lakers' 75.3 DefEff their best performance all season. Previous best 79.4 vs Milwaukee.

Game 5 in the twitterverse

2010-06-15T10:59:00.003-05:00

Some tweets from game 5 that I would have retweeted/commented on had I not been so busy with, you know, game 5 of the Finals (times CDT):

7:18 @KevinDing: In the most shocking development of the series to date, the Lakers have yet to be called for a foul through 7:02 of play!

7:23 @mcten: Kobe's high school coach Gregg Downer along with former Lower Merion teammate Doug Young are in the building

7:32 @forumbluegold: I like that the Lakers are pushing the pace a bit more this game. Getting chances against a Boston D that isn't quite set.

7:32 @haralabob: As good as BBD has done offensively vs Odom, Odom can take him off the dribble in ISO with ease

[I've been calling for this all series]

7:37 @lazenby: Gasol bears part of the blame with Artest for the screen and roll breakdowns with Paul Pierce

7:45 @mcten: From ESPN Stats & Info: Lakers are 6-for-11 from < 5 feet and 2-for-16 from > 5 feet

7:51 @forumbluegold: It all starts with getting defensive stops for the Lakers. Stops = cross matches and open court chances.

7:59 @lazenby: Kobe, pass the ball

7:59 @KDonhoops: Kobe's FG % percentage off of pump fakes is like .000001, and still he doesn't get it.

8:01 @forumbluegold: Kobe seems frustrated by the C's defense on him right now. He's getting knocked off his dribble and he's hunting fouls, not good shots.

8:05 @KevinDing: Gasol has taken 3 of Lakers' 41 shots and has no trips to the line.

8:05 @KDonhoops: Los Angeles' two-man game often only ends with one option.

8:07 @haralabob: I think Pierce pouted that last play bc he didn't get the ball - thats amazing

8:08 @kpelton: That's cool, Paul Pierce. It's not like this is Game 5 of the Finals or anything.

8:08 @AndreHoops: When you're a professional, and you're upset at your point guard for not getting you the ball--you say "no problem" during interview. #truth

["Professional" is not a word you associate with Paul Pierce. Classless thug is as classless thug does.]

8:08 @forumbluegold: I can't remember the last 2 man game between Pau and Kobe at the elbow.

8:09 @johnschuhmann: Crazy: Celtics either scored or turned it over on their first 19 possessions of the 2nd Q.

8:27 @forumbluegold: Phil is telling players to be ready to shoot upon the catch. Agree 100%. C's help/recover is great, but LA not ready to shoot helps Boston.

[They have passed up a ton of open shots to let defenders get back into plays this series]

8:28 @johnschuhmann: Celtics' 43 possessions: 22 scores, 11 turnovers, & 2 possessions that ended quarters. Result: Lakers w/ just 8 def. reb.

8:29 @KDonhoops: Too early to go to 4th Q offense, LAL. You had the right idea on the first possession, go back to it.

8:32 @mcten: Pau careless with another defensive rebound outlet pass. He's done that several times this series

8:37 @forumbluegold: Boston's spacing on the weak side for Pierce is what the Lakers need to give Kobe. PP's isolations are there b/c spacing = late helpers.

8:44 @lazenby: Lakers like to spread the floor and surprise teams that overplay at times like these, but the Celtics avoid excessive overplaying.

8:45 @haralabob: Is it okay to not overreact to Kobe and pay attention to everyone else when its clear he is disregarding everyone else?

8:48 @ESPNLandOLakers: Lakers now just looking to hand it back to Bryant on every trip. If they do that, it's over. BK

8:50 @mcten: Anybody who wanted evidence for the "Kobe doesn't make his teammates better" argument should DVR this 3rd quarter

8:50 @johnhollinger: The Lakers have ONE defensive rebound in the last TWENTY ONE minutes. Totally wasting the best Kobe performance of these Finals.

8:55 @basketballtalk: Farmar 1 on 5, and you could tell he thought about it.

8:55 @KDonhoops: What's the longest time Luke Walton has held on to the ball in his career. Four seconds?

[He's the anti-Kobe]

8:59 @forumbluegold: In all honesty, I think the Lakers only need two stops and two buckets and this game turns. Just not sure if the Lakers can get either.

9:01 @johnhollinger: But hey, the Lakers are improving. They got two defensive boards in 3rd quarter after getting only one in 2nd.

9:01 @AndreHoops: During a 3 minute and 18 second span of the 3rd quarter, Kobe Bryant outscored 3 days worth of offense from the 2010 World Cup.

[And took more total shots]

9:02 @russbengston: If Kobe's teammates are so much better than those of certain other superstars, where are they?

9:05 @KevinDing: Gasol was open inside there, but Farmar missed him to give it to Kobe. Then Pau pushed off.

[Example of how the turnover is not always the fault of who got it in the box]

9:13 @LakersReporter: One reason Pierce has 19 field goal attempts tonight: Fisher's been all over Allen (8 FGA's), officials allowing for physical D.

9:26 @ArashMarkazi: Kobe Bryant has 33 points and no one else on the team is in double-digits. Forget 2008. Is this 2006?

9:27 @mcten: Lil Nate is 10 feet from the huddle clapping and looking at fans in the stands. Sheed joins him. This is the team that's beating you, LA

[That's what is galling; rivalry or no, this is just a team full of miserable human beings]

9:27 @johnschuhmann: All those Boston turnovers in the 1st half & at this point, they have just 1 more than LA (who has 5 in the 4th).

9:35 @KevinDing: A fan just threw something and hit Odom.

9:35 @KevinDing: Big Baby Davis looks up at the crowd and asks: "What're you doing?"

[Meanwhile, I get a tweet from @listen2drescher telling me to "suck it" because I do not approve of fan violence. The incident and that reaction are the Boston fan in a nutshell]

9:36 @forumbluegold (and many others in my feed, both Lakers and independent) Stay classy, Boston

[Apparently it's only Boston fans that approve of fan violence]

9:38 @noamschiller: And of course, Mark Jackson likes the Pierce-on-5 offense. How long until he signs with the Clippers?

9:38 @LakersReporter: Up 5 with the ball in final min. was Orlando's situation before L.A. came back to win Game 4 in last year's Finals.

9:40 @forumbluegold: That's not reviewable? Wow. That's loophole, huh?

[Not sure why it wasn't a jump ball there, even at that - whistle with the rebound battle going on]

9:43 @ESPNForsberg Paul Pierce wrestles the ball away from Kobe with 38.9 seconds to play. WIM (wants it more). Story of the series.

[That wasn't wanting it more; that was two guys simultaneously fouling one with no call, getting the ball as a result (Pierce and Garnett both hold Kobe's left arm in the photo)

9:45 @kpelton: That was a clinic in how not to intentionally foul.

9:47 @lazenby: Missing free throws, not fouling on Rondo's layup, not fouling Rondo in the open court. Artest gets the bizness, but it was a team failure

9:48 @haralabob: Why Does Allen pass the ball should also be asked. RT @briancmahoney: How do the Lakers not foul Rondo there? Awful awareness and reactions.

9:52 @eussbengston: Kevin Garnett, putting the "pro" in profanity since 1995.

10:03 @LakersReporter: Phil said Kobe struggled in 1st half, got ankle re-taped at HT before coming out & scoring the team's first 19 points.

10:13 @tuffyr: Shrek and Donkey: 4 pts, 3 rbs, 22 min. As sequels go, it lived up to its namesake.

10:30 @KevinDing: Odom said he thought he was hit by a tiny vodka bottle late in game but wasn't sure.

10:34 @KevinDing: Bynum said knee has swollen some and will more on morning flight home but already promising he will play Game 6.

10:47 @LakersReporter: As much as Kobe would say about his ankle: "I just tweaked it a little. Just re-taped it."

11:01 @johnschuhmann: Gasol took 12 shots tonight. 6 of them came off his own offensive rebounds. Bryant missed more shots than any of his teammates took.

[And that seems like the perfect note on which to end this recap]

Game 4 in the twitterverse

2010-06-12T11:13:00.005-05:00

Some tweets from game 4 that I would have retweeted/commented on had I not been so busy with, you know, game 4 of the Finals (times CDT):

8:09 @sambot5k: hey abc? why do always open with this horrible nauseating camera angle. can you fix it, please?

8:09 @mcten: Lakers run an excellent inbounds play, but KG blocks Bynum who has zero lift with that knee of his

8:11 @forumbluegold: Two P&R's with Pierce as the ball handler. I expected that earlier in this series, but it's here now. Time to adjust.

8:12 @russbengston: Andrew Bynum is moving like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar out there. Of course Kareem is 63 years old.

8:29 @KDonhoops: Nate's in, and that was a makeup call for the cheap FTs Pierce got on his first drive of the game.

8:33 @cgrock24: Look closely & you will see that Rasheed kicked Pau in the shin.

[Disappointing that the announcers did not point out this obvious fact]

8:34 @KevinDing: Odom giving it to Farmar so much after he doesn't switch back to Nate Rob that Artest, who had recovered to Pierce, doesn't even try to.

8:34 @johnschuhmann: Now that quarter was both slow (21 possessions each) AND ugly (18 total scores).

8:35 @kpelton: 1Q Offensive Ratings: Celtics 86.4, Lakers 76.2.

8:36 @LAIreland: Hubie Brown would say: "If I'm LA, I'm worried that I have 16 1st qtr pts. If I'm BOS, I'm worried that Ray Allen is 1 of his last 19."

8:38 @RicBucher: Never seen Kobe have to work this hard to get shots. Left ankle is clearly not right. Can't see it improving as series goes on.

8:43 @LarryCoon: Van Gundy just used "Davis" and "undersized" in the same sentence.

8:43 @RicBucher: Doc last Xout: "If we get these shots all nite, we'll score a ton of points." Not win, just score. Odd 4 Doc. Usually shows more confidence.

[He didn't know Bynum would leave yet, no reason for confidence at that point]

8:45 @basketballtalk: @cgrock24 Artest isn't getting the help behind him he was before, Bynum is much slower to rotate to help right now. As on Big Baby basket.

8:45 @johnschuhmann: Nate Robinson has given a lift to both offenses in the 2nd quarter.

8:46 @forumbluegold: Odom is struggling with Baby the way that he's struggled the past two seasons with Craig Smith. Wide body, good feet, skilled at the hoop.

8:49 @ESPNLandOLakers: Is Nate Rob hitting his first two shots a good thing or a bad thing for Boston? BK

[Turned out to be good, but I'm guessing that's about a 1 in 4 prop for them]

8:49 @lazenby: Big Baby is an XXX factor

8:49 @ToureX: Not a pretty game so far. If this game was a girl you wouldn't think about picking her up til like 1 or 1.30am.

8:50 @danielbuerge_LA: I am looking forward to Rasheed's book once he retires entitled - "I've Never Committed A Foul, and So Can You!"

8:50 @ bandwagonknick: I don't know if I ever want to hear that crackhead howl from Sheed again after that last foul on Pau.

8:57 @lazenby: Lakers are starting to put pressure on Boston. Time for the Celtics to start thinking, to get that first fearful vision of being down 3-1

9:05 @johnschuhmann: Celtics had 0 turnovers in their first 19 possessions. They've had 6 in their last 22.

9:06 @LarryCoon: If the Lakers would just take care of the ball, they'd be up 15 right now.

9:07: @forumbluegold: Not to complain about the refs, but when Pau drives and gets bodied, is that not a foul? If that's a guard from either team, it's a whistle.

9:07 @SI_LeeJenkins That Gasoft stuff is so 2008

9:10 @LakersReporter: L.A. made 10-of-15 FG's in the 2nd Q after just 7-of-20 in the 1st to jump in front of Boston. ...

9:10 @johnschuhmann: 2nd quarter (52 points on 43 possessions) much more efficient than the 1st (35 on 42).

9:10 @LarryCoon: If this was a high school game, I think both teams would be running laps.

9:20 @forumbluegold: Lakers losing on the glass 21-20, have already allowed 7 ORB, and only grabbed 3 of their own. Plus they have 7 TO's. But still up 3.

9:23 @KevinDing: Kobe had 4 turnovers (more than the 3 for all his teammates combined) against two assists in 1st half.

9:25 @johnschuhmann: That 2nd quarter was actually the 3rd most efficient (both teams combined) quarter of the series so far.

9:32 @KevinDing: Celtics fan behind me upon seeing KG hit Pau in the face: "That's it! That's it!"

[Crowd's full of thugs too, eh?]

9:36 @forumbluegold: If Bynum's knee brace gets any bigger, he'll have a Toyota attached to his leg.

9:37 @LarryCoon: Am I wrong, or would the best way to get Perkins that 7th tech be to put Vujacic on him?

9:38 @lazenby: What the Lakers coaches really think of Thibodeaux's defense? It only works because modern players are too selfish to pass the ball.

9:39 @johnhollinger: Nice stand there by Pau by the way. Perk was jawing and bumping, trying to get into his head '08 style. Didn't work.

9:44 @Anthony_Carter: It was 3 seconds. They didn't start the shot clock until the ball crossed half court. Watch the replay!

9:45 @KDonhoops: I remember LO's first game against KG. Ate him up. Lamar even dunked on KG. KG has gone at him hard ever since.

9:47 @KevinDing: Gasol standing up to Perkins during stoppage in play. Kobe for 2nd time this game comes over to bark at Perk in Pau's defense.

9:48 @Mike_Bresnahan: Shades of 2008 Finals: Gasol getting shoved from the post almost to the 3-point line by Perkins; Odom doing next to nothing.

9:58 @@bruce_arthur: Because frankly, he doesn't give a damn. RT @russbengtson Sheed's new nickname should be "Dark Gable." #astacheandastash

9:58 @LakersReporter: Whistle was buried in the 3rd, both teams battling fiercely, as BOS cut 1 pt off L.A.'s 3-pt HT lead. 62-60 L.A., 12 min to go.

10:00 @johnschuhmann: The 1st quarter's reign as the Ugliest Quarter of the Series is over. Same amount of points, 1 extra possession in the 3rd.

10:01 @mcten: From ESPN Stats & Info: Kobe drew 8 fouls in Gm 1 (win), 2 in Gm 2 (loss), 5 in Gm 3 (win), just 1 so far in Gm 4.

10:02 @kpelton: Look, I'm a big process guy, but at what point when the Celtics keep shooting around 40% do we stop calling them good shots?

10:04 @KevinDing: Back-to-back BOS layups over Odom. Lack of Bynum noticeable.

10:02 @kpelton: Lakers go back to 1-2 pick-and-roll in the fourth quarter. Poor execution by Farmar.

10:05 @forumbluegold: Nate got on the ground and Farmar didn't. That's the difference between winning and losing, Jordan.

10:06 @ESPNLandOLakers: Per ESPN stats and info: Deflections in 3rd quarter: Celtics: 10 Lakers: 0

10:09 @KevinDing: It's now 4 layups and one FT-line jumper for Ray Allen in succession as BOS preys on Bynum-less paint. Celtics lead, 70-64.

10:14 @russbengston: Rasheed Wallace is out of his fucking mind.

10:14 @KevinDing: Rasheed pulls a Sasha and makes this about him, risking stalling the team's momentum.

10:14 @haralabob: That tech was a long time coming, what on earth, and what is he complaining about he raked him across the arms.

10:15 @briancmahoney With Nate, Sheed, and Artest out there, this might be the most unstable group ever assembled on an NBA Finals floor.

10:15 @KevinDing: Artest is talking to Nate Rob behind the play. Ron is unhappy with the Celtics flexing muscles to crowd and preening.

10:17 @russbengston: Nate, Baby, Sheed and KG are gonna have a crazy-off later.

10:19 @ESPNLandOLakers: The Celtics have yet to discover much composure from the creature comforts of home. AK

10:19 @johnschuhmann: 8 possessions, 19 points for the Cs to start the 4th. Their bench is +5, +6, +7, +9 for the night.

10:20 @jadande: Just to show how dumb that Nate Rob tech was, Rasheed was the guy trying to get him to stop acting tough in Lamar's face.

10:21 @tribjazz Rather lose with class guy like Ray Allen shooting 0-for-13 than win with antics of Rasheed Wallace and Nate Robinson.

10:23 @kpelton: Lakers finally get a stop in the fourth quarter. It only took 7:01.

10:25 @KevinDing: Main reason Boston is about to tie the series: Celtics outscoring Lakers in paint, 48-30 -- again showing Bynum's value.

10:26 @RicBucher: With Bynum out, the matchups revert to '08. And it's playing like it.

10:34 @forumbluegold: Mistakes. Too many mistakes.

10:39 @forumbluegold: Kobe and Pau may have 51 points, but it's their 11 turnovers that have really hurt the Lakers. 2 in the last few possessions were killers.

10:40 @13thirtyone: @forumbluegold this game is similar to game 2, in terms of the amount of TOs the lakers commited at end game situation.

10:42 @johnschuhmann: 34 points for the Cs in the 4th. Took them 21:13 to score 34 to start the game.

10:43 @LakersReporter: Not surprising that backs-to-wall Boston won hustle stats. 20-7 second-chance pts, 54-34 points in paint (no Bynum), 41-32 reb.

10:46 @johnschuhmann: Celtics scored 96 points on 85 possession. Who would've thought an hour ago that it would be their most efficient game of the series?

11:08 @dexterfishmore: The Celtics scored on 16 of 20 possessions in the fourth quarter.

11:09 @forumbluegold: Doc saying that he hopes the league rescinds 'Sheed's T. Why? ...

[If they really reviewed he'd be getting another in games 3 and 4]

11:15 @LakersReporter: Phil sums up game: "(The Celtics) had their backs to the wall tonight. They played desperate, and they got away with it."

11:26 @dexterfishmore: The Celtics shot 15-of-15 from the free throw line in the second half.

11:48: @johnschuhmann: The two teams combined for more points in the 4th quarter (63) than either team scored through 3 (score was 62-60).

Game 3 in the twitterverse

2010-06-10T15:53:00.000-05:00

Some (okay, lots of) tweets from game 3 that I would have retweeted/commented on had I not been so busy with, you know, game 3 of the Finals (times CDT):

8:10 @coachthorpe: KG commanding the front of the rim. LA needs to claim that space.

8:10 @forumbluegold: 2 fouls on Artest. It's like musical chairs with the foul trouble in this series. Your turn Ron-Ron.

8:11 @mcten: KG was holding Pau so bad that possession that he forgot to let go to contest Fish's drive

8:12 @forumbluegold: That baseline drive is open if the C's are going to go on the top side against Pau. The Lakers need to initiate more from the sideline.

8:16 @basketballtalk: The Lakers need to make baskets to slow down the Celtics in transition. Which is the exact opposite of the 1980s.

8:19 @forumbluegold: That was a nice play by Kobe. He went opposite of the pick - something the C's D loads up on on the screen side.

8:23 @KevinDing: Ray Allen is 0/4 tonight. One thing Artest accomplished: Ray was definitely shaken up when Artest leveled him for Ron's 2nd foul.

8:23 @johnhollinger: Game is devolving into yin-yang battle between Bill Kennedy's tendency to screw Cs and Bennett Salvatore's habit of screwing road team.

8:26 @ESPNLandOLakers: For a guy everyone claims can't defend, the Celts sure haven't made any effort to go at Walton. AK

8:27 @mcten: From ESPN Stats & Info: Celtics are 4-4 FG in transition; 4-15 FG in half court

[D was locked in from minute 1, it was just hard to tell at first]

8:31 @lazenby: Walton is an underrated defender, and he makes the triangle shine. Already an impact off the bench.

[He was almost as key for getting the lead as Fish was closing]

8:32 @forumbluegold: Love how the Lakers are playing those screens for Allen. Bigs are separating from their man and giving the space for Fish to run through.

8:34 @mcten: Rajon Rondo might not be the best passer in the league, but he's the best bounce passer

8:34 @coachthorpe: The battle for the most important real estate on the floor is one of the best I've seen in years. Both teams fighting.

8:36 @mcten: Great awareness by Fish with that pass

[The one at the end of the 1st for the Odom and-1 with 0.7 left].

8:38 @mcten: Lakers up 26-17 after one. Fantastic timeout by PJax turned things around for the Lake Show.

8:38 @johnschuhmann: After scoring on 6 of their first 9 possessions, Celtics scored on just 3 of their last 13.

8:38 @kpelton: Lakers +12 after Odom and 'Sheed entered the game at the midway point of the first quarter.

8:39 @LakersReporter: Stat update: After Boston started the game 3-for-3 (all KG), they made just 5-of-20 shots (25%). L.A. shot 44.4%.

8:38 @johnschuhmann: After scoring on 3 of their first 10 possessions, Lakers scored on 9 of their last 12.

8:40 @ESPNStatsInfo: Celtics in 1st quarter: Rondo/KG: 16 Pts, 8-10 FG; Rest of team: 1 Pt, 0-13 FG

8:42 @ESPNLandOLakers: Wallace with the sort of help defense I display at the rec. That is not a compliment.

8:43 @LAIreland: That's twice that Kobe has gone straight to the hoop without anybody hammering him. That never happened in '08--good early sign for LA

8:45 @KDonhoops: Fantastic spacing for LA

8:46 @mcten: Lakers up by 15 and its because of the ... Bench. That's a new one.

[It was ultimately a 32-8 run to go from down 7 to up 17]

8:47 @KDonhoops: Celtic fans react the same way to Tony Allen dribbling the ball as Laker fans react to Ron Artest shooting a three.

8:47 @mcten: Jordan Farmar never follows his shot. Ever.

8:47 @johnschuhmann: Lakers already have 5 3-point possessions. Didn't have one until 1:16 left in the 2nd quarter on Sunday.

8:48 @forumbluegold: Bad offense right now without Kobe in the game. No rhythm and everything is a jumpshot. The Lakers need to make post entries and cut.

8:49 @KevinDing: Lakers lead, 37-24. Sheed killing Celts at both ends. He comes into timeout and pats own chest as he approaches KG on bench.

8:50 @johnschuhmann: Odom: +16. Rasheed: -16.

8:51 @KevinDing: Subtly great move by Phil to start Q2 by keeping Kobe in to get Lakers rolling ... then subbing Ron in, as he must before sitting too long.

8:52 @bball_ref: Cs weak Robinson/TAllen/Pierce/Davis/Wallace unit was -17.46 +/- per 100 poss in playoffs going into game

8:53 @KDonhoops: The Garden's 24 second clock buzzer sounds like it was stolen from an Opel Cadet.

8:53 @RicBucher: Kobe to 2nd unit, last timeout: "we're running the Triangle. Get the ball into the post. Run your cuts. We haven't done that yet."

8:59 @mcten: We should start calling D-Fish the cash register. All he does is take charges.

9:04 @forumbluegold: Kobe just told the ref that KG is holding on after he sets the screen. Looked like he said "that's TWICE!"

9:05 @Matt_Calkins: Paul Pierce on Jumbotron "Make some nooooiiiiiise!!!!!" Fans to Pierce: "Make a baskkkkeeeeettt!!!"

9:06 @KDonhoops: Safe to say the short break between games hasn't affected Andrew Bynum's ability to be better than Kendrick Perkins.

9:11 @KevinDing: Gasol saved Walton by coming out after Luke picked up his dribble. Those little things are so key.

9:13 @RicBucher: Luke Walton, providing clinic for Artest on how Triangle is run. Which is why Luke has played 10min to Artest's 9.

9:14 @johnschuhmann: Very slow pace. 43 possessions for each team. They each had 50 in the 1st half on Sunday.

9:15 @KevinDing: Lakers envisioned nice complement of Luke's O and Ron's D at SF this season. In Game 101, here it is.

9:16 @lazenby: Luke helps so much the triangle execution, which helps Lakers' floor balance, which helps them get back on defense. 10 good mins for luke

9:21 @RicBucher: Tweeps, stop blaming Artest's 2 early fouls for his limited minutes. He returned, PP blew by him, O froze + Phil went right back to Luke.

9:22 @wondahbap: Kobe, you can still win Finals MVP if you keep driving and making hustle plays. No need for contested 20 footers right now.

[Remarkably, that was BEFORE halftime ended]

9:38 @KDonhoops: The tend not to show any close Laker/Celtic calls on the scoreboard that favored the C's. Just sayin'

9:40 @TrueHoop: Ray Allen has the anti-hot hand.

9:41 @ESPNLandOLakers: Is KG under the impression he made the shot. Why's he hitting his chest on the ground? AK

[Because he has an extreme, probably clinical, insecurity about being perceived as having heart]

9:41 @forumbluegold: Kobe? PUJIT 3? C'mon. Pierce has 4 fouls and Kobe lets him off easy with that pull up instead of attacking off the dribble.

9:41 @lazenby: Kobe's on that tightwire right now between being aggressive and running the offense. You just gotta live and die with that. It's who he is.

9:44 @KDonhoops: Expert help D from Kobe tonight.

9:51 @KevinDing: Bynum clearly favoring his leg as he comes out with 4:59 left in Q3. But trainer Gary Vitti checks on him and goes to sit back down.

9:56 @forumbluegold: I'd really like to see a cross screen to get Pau moving to the ball and better position in the post.

10:02 @lazenby: If the Lakers get the ball to the bigs they can regain their grip on this thing.

10:04 @johnhollinger: Abonimable offensive quarter for L.A., right from that wild jack from Kobe out of the locker room. 15 points, only two free-throw attempts.

10:04 @johnschuhmann: Pace just keeps getting slower. Only 19 possessions for each team in that 3rd Q. 62 for each team thus far.

10:07 @johnschuhmann: Celtics have just 4 turnovers. That's 4 over their last 99 possessions, which is unreal for this team.

[Foreshadowing the regression]

10:09 @KevinDing: Sheed was pushing Pau during that last stoppage. Now he shows up Danny Crawford with a lap but still no tech.

[Nobody else in the league can do that without getting rung up for a tech]

10:11 @KevinDing: That charge by Big Baby on Farmar was so strong that Jordy's unborn child felt it.

10:11 @johnschuhmann: That was 27 possessions w/o a TO for Boston before the Davs off. foul.

10:12 @DanielArtest: LA need to sign me. I’m strong enough to guard big baby.

10:14 @cgrock24: Well Well. I guess I've got it wrong. Lamar can't guard Big Baby. Glenn is a very good athlete - very agile - good coordination & balance.

10:16 @SherrodbCSN Odom is p'd off at Kobe. The two are going at it verbally as I type this. ... meltdown!

10:17 @forumbluegold: Gone missing: the Triangle offense. Too many isolations, too much dribbling, not nearly enough post entries and screens being set.

10:17 @russbengston: Big Baby floats like a hippo and stings like a rhinoceros.

10:17 @KevinDing: The refs watch video, too, you know. They've scouted Ray, whom Bynum said after last game pushes off all the time.

10:18 @LakersReporter: L.A. finally got penetration on O, as Fisher cut to the hoop for a layup, but next came another missed 3 from Kobe (9-for-26).

10:25 @lazenby: Boston's defense has forced Lakers guards into impatience. They've got to feed the post, then wait for the repost to get deeper.

10:26 @forumbluegold: The Lakers need to get into their sets faster. Too many contested shots as the shot clock is set to expire.

10:27 @forumbluegold: Bynum goes out and the C's get a lay-in. I'm thinking that's not a coincidence.

10:30 @russbengston: If the Lakers pull this out, I hope Fish makes someone say Little Rock.

10:31 @basketballtalk: Fisher is the only Laker guard that reposts consistently

10:31 @KDonhoops: I think the Celtics medic just rushed up to Doc to tell him that he had Glen Davis guarding Pau Gasol.

10:31 @johnhollinger: Great move going to Pau. Lakers were deep into their "we forgot Pau was on the team" routine til that play. No way Baby stops him on block.

10:33 @junior_miller: Derek Fisher has big balls. Ray Allen has a big bag.

10:33 @TasMelas: Kobe Bryant has not scored in the 4th and the Lakers offense has looked a hell of a lot better the last couple minutes.

10:34 @mcten: Ray Allen in Game 2 is to Ray Allen in Game 3 as John Travolta in Pulp Fiction is to John Travolta in Battlefield Earth

10:36 @lazenby: Great rotations by the Lakers with KG posting Kobe

10:37 @mcten: No matter what the final score is, the music at TD Garden obliterates the music at Staples

10:42 @russbengston: Tonight, Kobe Bryant is wearing the Zoom Fisher V.

10:42 @Geoff6598 @lazenby Ray Allen from shades of Michael Jordan to shades of John Starks

10:43 @LakersReporter: Fisher has been absurdly huge down the stretch, scoring 11 of his 16 in the 4th quarter. #clutch

10:44 @lazenby: When Tex and Phil came to the Lakers, they asked me about Fish. I told them he reminded me of Joe Dumars in terms of smarts and character.

10:44 @KevinDing: And the rest of you? RT @gtnilc: @KevinDing i now regret everything bad i said about fisher from the regular season

10:46 @MikeVacc: If Derek Fisher and Robert Horry ever played H-O-R-S-E to the death, the game would last into infinity.

10:46 @mcten: Best part about Fisher's night is we in the media said before the playoffs, "You know Fish is going to have one of those moments" & he has

10:47 @johnschuhmann: Celtics had 4 turnovers in 1st 3 quarters. 5 in the 4th.

10:49 @johnhollinger: Ray Allen, I'd like you to meet Dennis Johnson and John Starks. It seems the three of you have something in common.

10:52 @JeanieBuss: Fisher = Character Driven. "Derek being Derek making big plays." KB

10:53 @johnschuhmann: 83 possessions for the Celtics. 82 for the Lakers. Wasn't as ugly as the final score would indicate. Just really slow.

10:54 @LakersReporter: Fisher was 1-of-5 from the field heading into the 4th. He was 5-of-7 in the 4th for 11 points. #clutchgene

11:04 @KevinDing: Phil: "The job Fish did on Allen was terrific tonight."

11:04 @LakersReporter: As Jackson noted, lost amidst Fisher's 11 points in the 4th was that he was right in Allen's face (0-for-13) all game.

11:14 @j_d_hastings: @derekfisher You are my favorite person in the galaxy right now, man.

11:14 @EricPincus: ha – lakers shot 51% without kobe

11:19 @KevinDing: Doc on Pierce's bad game: "They (the refs) didn't allow him to play tonight."

[He forgot to finish the thought” “like Kobe in game 2”]

11:30 @LakersReporter: Fisher explained that when you play a 2-man game with Kobe, his man is unlikely to help off a screen, which opens the D.

11:34 @LakersReporter: Fisher offered a reason for Allen's tough shooting night: tired legs from having to guard Kobe on defense.

[Kind way of avoiding “old”]

11:37 @LakersReporter: Fisher explained that his fastbreak layup happened simply because he had a lane. Would have pulled out if closed.

11:41 @LakersReporter: Kobe: "(Fisher's) been criticized quite a bit for his age. It's a huge thrill for all of us to see him come through."

11:42 @LakersReporter: Kobe said it "changes things drastically" for him personally having Fish. "He's our vocal leader, the heart & soul of this team."

11:43 @LakersReporter: More good Kobe quotes: "(Fisher's) really the only one I listen to. The other guys are a bunch of young kids."

12:21 @LakersReporter: Had Sasha Vujacic scored at the rate he did in 19 sec. (2 points) he would have scored 288 points in 48 minutes. #justsaying

12:35 @statsbynumbers: Finals - Lakers take 2-1 in incredibly slow game - only 163 total possessions. …

Game 2 in the twitterverse

2010-06-08T11:25:00.002-05:00

Some tweets from game 2 that I would have retweeted/commented on had I not been so busy with, you know, game 2 of the Finals (times CDT):

7:11 @basketballtalk: If you didn't think KG has lost a step, Ron Artest just took him off the dribble baseline.

7:16 @RicBucher: One Celtic told me before game if refs call it tight, they don't have much chance of winning.

[So much for that idea, huh?]

7:38 @johnschuhmann: Lakers scored just 1 point on final 10 possessions of the 1st Q. Each team had 25 possessions total.

7:38 @lazenby: Lakers have given up a big quarter. Boston won the battle of the boards 13-9.

7:38 @ESPNLandOLakers: Lakers were +5 over the final 3 minutes of both Q1 and Q2 Thursday, tonight -8 over last 3 mins of Q1 tonight. BK

7:40 @LakersReporter: Odom picked up his 3rd foul in Game 1 with 10:20 to go in the 2nd. Tonight, he got 3 in 3 minutes in the 1st.

7:40 @johnhollinger: Lamar Odom proving he can do worse than the 2008 Finals...

7:48 @KDonhoops: Sheed and KG just flying wedge'd Rondo free, there.

7:49 @forumbluegold: The ball is not getting into the post and the Lakers are paying for it with missed jumpers and Celtic fast breaks.

7:53 @ESPNLandOLakers: I'm sure everything will be fine for the Lakers as long as Farmar keeps dribbling. BK

8:12 @KDonhoops: Kobe's head is always fouling people.

8:13 @mcten: I haven't seen a flop wake up a crowd so much since ... Oh yeah, Dragic in Game 6 in Phoenix

8:13 @KDonhoops: YOU HAVE PAU GASOL ON YOUR TEAM

8:18 @basketballtalk: I wonder next year if we will see a lot of moving screens in Chicago?

8:24 @johnschuhmann: The Celtics scored 23 times in the 1st half. The Lakers scored 25 times.

8:44 @KDonhoops: Lakers give the ball right away to Pau to start the half. To take it out of bounds.

8:46 @KDonhoops: Another Kobe double of KG. Why?

8:53 @drewbelzer: To say KG has been a non-factor is an insult to non-factors.

9:05 @johnhollinger: Thought refs did well in first half but some ticky tacky calls in 3rd. Kobe and KG both got bogus 4th fouls. Thought Baby fouled Bynum tho.

9:13: @SI_ChrisBallard: Are we sure Pau wasn't talking about Paul Pierce?

9:53: @coachthorpe: Boston's ball movement in the 2nd half was superb. LA struggled all night with theirs.

9:55 @KDonhoops: Who would have thought, an hour ago, that Rondo would be the guy in this box score pic, not Ray?

9:55 @LakersReporter: After Kobe's J with 5:21 left: Bynum TO, Kobe miss, Artest TO, Fisher miss, Bryant miss, Bryant miss, Artest miss.

10:11 @LakersReporter: Key stat: Boston turned the ball over only 2 times in the 2nd half, the Lakers 7. C's also 11 FB points to L.A.'s 4.

10:12 @johnschuhmann: Celtics had 12 turnovers in their first 54 possessions & zero in their last 37. The Lakers had nine in that last stretch.

10:13 @forumbluegold: If LO could have played as well as Nate Robinson did when both replaced tired stars (Pau, Rondo) LA could have won. I feel sad saying that.

11:30 @LakersReporter: Andrew Bynum: "Of course they didn't want it more. We just played stupid. We were up 90-87 & had 4 turnovers."

Game 1 in the twitterverse

2010-06-05T11:35:00.002-05:00

Some tweets from game 1 that I would have retweeted/commented on had I not been so busy with, you know, game 1 of the Finals (times CDT):

8:13 @McTen: Every Ron-run fastbreak needs the Benny Hill theme music played behind it

8:17 @KDonhoops: Is Pau Gasol the only big man in the league that can recover and score that quickly when the chair is pulled on him?

8:29 @KevinDing: That kind of stupid pass to Kobe from Jordan Farmar was how Kobe fractured his finger in the first place. Lakers 18, Celtics 16.

8:41 @johnhollinger: If you had nine reserves playing in the first quarter, you may now collect your 1,000-to-1 bet.

8:45 @forumbluegold: Lakers off. efficiency is 108.3 after the first quarter. Celtics' is at 87.5.

8:58 @LAMase: Artest gave away 2 tix to Gm 1 in Twitter contest. Winners are on the court like Nicholson. Artest paid $18K for them!!!

[Artest may be odd, but this season I have learned that he is a fantastic guy.]

9:04 @russbengston: If you drained Andrew Bynum's knee and put it in front of Big Baby, he'd drink it right?

9:08 @ESPNLandOLakers: That's what Fisher does well- gets the guy to drive in the direction help can come. BK

9:15 @johnschuhmann: Bynum has had quite a few screens that have led to baskets.

9:20 @ESPNLandOLakers: Lakers +5 in last three minutes of both the first and second quarter. That's good. BK

9:20 @johnschuhmann: Much slower pace in that 2nd Q: 21 poss. each. Lakers w/ 50 points on 46 possessions. Celtics w/ 41 on 46.

[Because there were fewer free throws in the second.]

9:22 @forumbluegold: At the half, the Lakers off. efficiency is 113.6 on 57.8% true shooting. The C's are at 93.2 on 49.3% true shooting.

9:25 @lazenby: Here's good news for Lakers fans. The Celtics team that destroyed the Cavs and Magic is not on the floor in LA today.

[Yeah, they were, just a big step up in competition.]

9:40 @lazenby: JACK ALWAYS GOES TO THAT SECRET CLOSET IN STAPLES AT HALFTIME TO SMOKE A DOOBIE. HE ALWAYS LOOKS BUZZED SO NO DAMAGE

9:49 @mdotbrown: There were less whistles when the Playboy mansion was under construction

9:55 @KDonhoops: Three combined rebounds from KG and Perkins in almost 44 minutes.

9:57 @KDonhoops: Soft?

9:59 @KDonhoops: SOFT?

10:12 @russbengston: Pretty sure Rasheed pushes all of his stuff to the arena in a shopping cart.

10:16 @johnschuhmann: Lakers' 3rd Q possessions: 1 2 2 2 x x 2 2 2 2 x 2 2 x 2 2 x 2 2 2 2 3. That's efficient.

10:19 @AndreHoops: If my man Paul Pierce wants to continue his best player in the world campaign, he'd better ask Ron-Ron to back off of him a little bit.

10:19 @KevinDing: NBA asked Phil to stop paying $ for charges drawn b/c it's technically illegal.

[NBA stands for No Fun League...oh wait.]

10:21 @KevinDing: I don't think even Celtics fans can root for Rasheed.

10:22 @lazenby: Sheed reminds me of a guy I used to hoop with at the Y. Used to drink a 6 pack fore he stepped on the floor. New meaning for the work check

10:24 @KevinDing: Rasheed, who has been fighting back problems and not practicing, just asked out of the game. He has played 15 minutes in three quarters.

[Came back later so it couldn't have been injury. Given that he had been on one of his bouts of insanity for several minutes before, I suspect he just asked out because he lost the stomach to play with the way the game was going, quitting has been his trademark for half a decade now.]

10:30 @lazenby: FB points, Lakers 10-2. Points in the paint, Lakers 42-20. Beat 'em coming and going.

10:35 @KevinDing: Artest devouring Big Baby for late dinner there symbolic of Lakers' improved paint presence since 2008 Finals.

10:35 @forumbluegold: I don't know too many SF's that could absorb a hit from Big Baby, block the shot flat footed, and then get the steal save. #Queensbridge

10:41 @bruce_arthur: Man, Kevin Garnett is going to give Kevin Garnett an absolute earful when they get back to the huddle.

[He used to be the barking rottweiler, now he's the yapping Maltese.]

10:42 @russbengston: If KG's athletic ability was a person, it would look like Rasheed Wallace.

10:48 @LakersReporter: Pau Gasol has the same number of rebounds as Garnett, Perkins, Allen and Rondo combined (12).

[Yeah, but those guys are soft, unfair comp.]

10:56 @johnschuhmann: Points in the paint: LA 48, Bos 30. Matches biggest PIP discrepancy of the season for the Celtics.

11:00 @forumbluegold: Lakers end the game with an off. eff. of 114.6, Boston ends at an even 100. Celtics winless when allowing 100+ pts in playoffs.

12:28 @LakersReporter: One more Gasol stat: his 8 offensive boards matched that of Boston's whole team.

1:40 @HoopData: Boston shot a pathetic 12-for-27 at the rim tonight. Haven't shot that bad since 1/28 game vs Orlando.

1:43 @HoopData: 13 of Kobe's 22 shots came within 10 feet, and he got to the line 10 times. 3-for-9 from beyond 10 feet on the night.

1:43 @HoopData: Boston only attempted 10 threes on the night, their lowest total since first game of playoffs against Miami.

2:36 @LakersReporter: Rajon Rondo had 6 pts in the first 3 minutes, 7 in the next 45.

[Kobe quit leaving him, after a poor start defensively he was great.]

3:03 @LakersReporter: It had been 6 games since Bryant scored 30 on the Celtics, reg. season included. Last was Game 3 of 2008 Finals.

Quick hits 5/5

2010-05-05T18:51:00.003-05:00

Items of note from my stack of reading material:

The individual who wrote "Dear Lord . . . this year you have taken away my favorite actor, Patrick Swayze, my favorite actress, Farrah Fawcett, my favorite singer, Michael Jackson, and my favorite salesman, Billy Mays. . . . I just wanted to let you know that Chris Christie is my favorite governor" in a New Jersey teacher’s union memo still has a job. Why is that, exactly?

******

Larry Elder on Michael Steele’s unfortunate decision to play the black victim card as excuse for his own incompetence:

Steele blames his difficulties on the "African-American … slimmer margin for error" — the same hazard that Obama deals with. Honestly. From the traditional media to the punditry class to academia to the monologues of late-night comics, never has any president enjoyed a more groveling, fawning, obsequious, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil, see-no-evil quasi-deification.

******

Charles Krauthammer on Obama’s nuclear foolishness:

Under President Obama's new policy, however, if the state that has just attacked us with biological or chemical weapons is "in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)," explained Gates, then "the U.S. pledges not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against it."

Imagine the scenario: Hundreds of thousands are lying dead in the streets of Boston after a massive anthrax or nerve gas attack. The president immediately calls in the lawyers to determine whether the attacking state is in compliance with the NPT. If it turns out that the attacker is up to date with its latest IAEA inspections, well, it gets immunity from nuclear retaliation. (Our response is then restricted to bullets, bombs and other conventional munitions.)

However, if the lawyers tell the president that the attacking state is NPT-noncompliant, we are free to blow the bastards to nuclear kingdom come.

This is quite insane. It's like saying that if a terrorist deliberately uses his car to mow down a hundred people waiting at a bus stop, the decision as to whether he gets (a) hanged or (b) 100 hours of community service hinges entirely on whether his car had passed emissions inspections. […]

This administration seems to believe that by restricting retaliatory threats and by downgrading our reliance on nuclear weapons, it is discouraging proliferation.

But the opposite is true. Since World War II, smaller countries have forgone the acquisition of deterrent forces — nuclear, biological and chemical — precisely because they placed their trust in the firmness, power and reliability of the American deterrent.

Seeing America retreat, they will rethink. And some will arm. There is no greater spur to hyper-proliferation than the furling of the American nuclear umbrella.

******

Mickey Kaus: “It’s getting highly annoying to hear Obama and Senate Democrats pretend that to have effective border control we have to take a package deal that includes amnesty. They’re worse than the cable company when it comes to package deals.”

******

Phil Jackson, on the silly decision by the Suns to alienate more than half their fan base by making a heavy handed political statement tonight:

“I don’t think teams should get involved in the political stuff. And I think this one’s still kind of coming out to balance as to how it’s going to be favorably looked upon by our public. If I heard it right the American people are really for stronger immigration laws, if I’m not mistaken. Where we stand as basketball teams, we should let that kind of play out and let the political end of that go where it’s going to go.”

RIP TJK

2010-05-05T10:49:00.003-05:00

One year ago, a good friend passed away from ALS. This is a poem written and read by Bob Stephenson at the funeral, to give you an idea of what it's like to live with that horrible disease:

For Tim…..

I’ve never been accused of being short on words
No one will charge me today.

Indulge me if you will for a moment.
If seated, wedge you’re hands beneath outer thighs, palms up.
Standing, hands in pockets and make a fist.

Close your eyes and imagine:
Feet nailed to floor like Messiah to cross.
arms bound by sides in slip knot straight jacket
two ton pressured heavy chest as the rope tightens

Your scalp
is a constant itch
eyes
a rolling twitch
as you beg for relief and forgiveness.
Accordion straw flagged water bottle taunts your thirst
the mere thought makes bladder burst
and you curse your maker for the life direction.

Every night
is a wrestling match
to avoid the 300 thread count strangle hold
Every day
a battle for the regularity
the world takes for granted
It’s been a year
since you enjoyed the solitude
of standing beneath hot shower
flushed and washed your hands
pulled on tube socks
buttoned a work shirt
buckled a belt
turned on a light
or opened a door for your neighbor.

You hold dear
the last time you drove car
pumped gas
buckled your kids safety belt
stood in line at a concession stand
and composed bucket lists

you can’t remember the last time
you licked garlic drenched lemon butter
from your finger tips
felt the gentle curved back
of a fork between thumb and index
tasted the metallic bullet
in aluminum beer can to lips
or scrubbed the black ink
from Sunday paper palms.

you miss that early morning stretch
from scissor arms above head
through lung filled chest
over extended calves to tipped toes
and the exhale moans deep
into vapors of morning coffee.

You long for sidewalk tricycle races
water wings and painted Halloween faces,
refrigerator art and butterfly pin wheels,
Electric trains and crashing Hot Wheels
Baseball cards instead of Pokemon Cards
Coin collections and assembly required directions

Your world is soothed
in a Daughter loving embrace
turned upside down
as you ache for son’s untied shoe lace
and the truth that pictures
don’t replace a thousand words.

tears run marathons from cheek to chin
salt trail trenches dig in
through belief and perseverance
but you search for divinity in death
as you count every breath
and lungs auto pilot is shattered

SO walk with your maker

take meek solace
from the hands of faith
place your dreams
in the arms of hope
receive communion
from the chalice of charity
gather comfort
in the pyre of courage
place blind trust
on the scales of justice
bleed your soul
in the well of temperance
and bathe
in the light of wisdom
with the peace that God ….
has made a place for you.

Quick hits 4/28

2010-04-28T16:21:00.002-05:00

Some notables from my recent reading:

Mark Steyn on the fatuousness of our current nuclear weapons policy:

By the way, that’s another example of the self-indulgent irrelevance of Obama. The mound of corpses being piled up around the world today is not from high-tech nuclear states but from low-tech psycho states. It’s not that Britain has nukes and poor old Sudan has to make do with machetes. It’s that the machete crowd is willing to kill on an industrial scale and the high-tech guys can’t figure out a way to stop them. Perhaps for his next pointless yakfest the president might consider a machete nonproliferation initiative.

Nuclear technology cannot be un-invented. All you can do, as President Reagan understood when few others did, is invent something that will render it, if not yet obsolete, at least less lethal. Until that moment, what makes the difference is not the technology but the regime.

Indeed it is. You would think, with the fall of the Soviet Union, the knee jerk anti-nuke movement would have faded away, but now they’ve moved into positions of actual policy influence…scary.

A little more:

[T]here’s no correlation between peace and the number of weapons — except insofar as states with only a few nukes are more likely to use them than states with gazillions: If you’ve only got a dozen, you’re under more pressure to let ’em fly before they’re taken out by incoming. So the principle underpinning Obama’s Seventies-retro nuke summit — that the size of a civilized state’s stockpile adds to the global threat — is not just false but dangerously delusional. Likewise, the urge to forswear nuclear innovation. It would be greatly to the advantage of civilization if responsible powers were to develop new forms of limited, highly targeted, bunker-busting nukes.

Spot on.

******

Jeff Jacoby on the outcry over Spirit Airlines lowering ticket prices while making excess carry-on luggage an a la carte charge:

[I]f Schumer grieves so deeply about travelers being "nickeled and dimed" when they fly, why has he never gone after the US ticket tax, which adds 7.5 percent to the price of every domestic flight? Or the $16.50 the federal government charges for each international departure and arrival? Or the $17 in customs and inspection fees paid by passengers flying into US airports from abroad? Or the "passenger facilities charges" (up to $18 per round-trip)? Or the "US Security Service Fee" ($2.50 per departure)? Or the "domestic segment fee" ($3.70 per flight segment)? The government's unremitting "nickeling and diming"of airline passengers doesn't trouble the sleep of New York's senior senator. Only when a private firm acts does he toss and turn in anguish.

******

Jack Kelly on President Bush (43)’s missed opportunity to clean up the CIA:

[I]n the gravest mistake of his presidency, George W. Bush didn't clean house. He just threw money at the existing structure, which made a bad situation worse.

"In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Congress gave the CIA more than $3 billion to increase its deep cover capabilities overseas," Ishmael said. "The CIA was not able to field a single additional effective deep cover case officer overseas. The money was swallowed up into higher pay packages, expensive boondoggles, the enrichment of contracting companies run by former CIA employees, and the expansion of CIA offices within the United States."

As usually happens with government spending…

******

It’s sad when the people who show up to protest a Nazi rally end up being worse people than the actual Nazis:

A bare-chested middle-aged man with Nazi insignias tattooed on his chest and back walked into a crowd of hundreds of counter-protesters gathered near 1st and Spring streets.

Surrounded, the man mockingly bobbed his head to the rhythm of demonstrators chanting "Nazi scum." About a dozen protesters suddenly began pelting the man with punches and kicks. He fell and was struck on the back with the wooden handle of a protester's sign, which snapped in two. Police eventually reached the man and pulled him from the melee, as blood poured from the back of his neck.

Another man was rushed by a mob on Spring Street. He was punched in the face and kicked for about 20 seconds before police made it to the scene. After that beating was broken up, the man began running south on Spring Street, only to be chased down by a protester and slugged in the face. He collapsed and his face slammed to the curb as protesters began pummeling him again.

The bloodied man was then escorted away by police. Both victims were treated and released, police said.

His sign, unclear in its intended meaning, read "Christianity=Paganism=Heathen$" with an arrow pointing at a swastika.

"Gosh, I think he just didn't have a clear message. I don't even think he was a Nazi," said one man, looking at the broken pieces of the sign left behind.

It turns out that some protests are violent (see also the anti-Arizona immigration law protests), it’s just that Tea Parties are not among them.

******

James Taranto notes a delicious story of a government assault on freedom gone awry:

Southern California has suffered a "sudden increase of water main breaks that damaged numerous homes, businesses and streets." KCBS-TV reports that the problem was caused by the "conservation"--i.e., rationing--efforts of Los Angeles' Department of Water and Power:

DWP customers were restricted to watering their lawns on Mondays and Thursdays only, which caused everybody to water their lawns basically at the same time. As a result, water pressure dropped, and the pipes were submitted to more cycles of water pressure.

In other words, the maximum water pressure did not change, but the minimum did, and this cyclic pressure created fatigue on corroded pipes.

We got a kick out of the headlines on the KCBS Web site, though. The main headline reads, "DWP's Water Rationing Blamed for Water Main Breaks." But here's the subheadline: "Report: Water Main Breaks Were Mainly Fault of Public."

Stupid public. They should have known better than to follow the DWP's idiotic rules.

******

More Taranto, catching a global warmist being honest:

[From an article in Der Spiegel]:

German climatologist Hans von Storch now wants to see an independent institution recalculate the temperature curve, and he even suggests that the skeptics be involved in the project. He points out, however, that processing the data will take several years.

"There is no other way to regain the trust that has been lost," he says, "even if I'm certain that the new curve will not look significantly different from the old one."

And if it does? "That would definitely be the worst-case scenario for climatology. We would have to start all over again."

That's a revealing quote, isn't it? These climate guys have been insisting we're all doomed, and if it turns out they're wrong, that's the worst-case scenario for them.

Oxes being gored and such

2010-04-27T18:39:00.004-05:00

Roger Kimball with a genius passive aggressive call for consistency of thought from media old and new:

Heavens! The extremists are in the streets again. As I write, racially motivated opponents of Arizona’s new law that is intended to curb illegal immigration are festooning the state Capitol with swastikas — swastikas! — made of refried beans and are planning legal action to block the law from taking effect. The world’s most buffoonish political figure, the “Rev.” Al Sharpton, has called for a boycott and is said (though this cannot be confirmed at press time) to be calling on Tawana Brawley to speak at an anti-anti-immigration rally. Naturally, The New York Times, MSNBC, CNN, and kindred media outlets are set to repudiate these new outbreaks of hate and racist incitements to violence, narrow-mindedness, bigotry, etc., etc. Look for it tomorrow on the Daily KOS and other web sites dedicated to rooting out irrational prejudice and exposing the sore losers who don’t understand that elections have consequences and who won’t give a new law a chance but who divisively call for the repeal of the will of the people.

How bad are they?

2010-04-26T11:49:00.002-05:00

We don't know yet, but the Orioles' 2-16 start through Saturday (they somehow won yesterday) does yield some comps:

thru 18 rest of season Final
Year Team Lg W L W L % W L %
1884 Indianapolis AA 2 16 27 62 .303 29 78 .271
1884 Detroit NL 2 16 26 68 .277 28 84 .250
1892 Baltimore NL 2 16 44 85 .341 46 101 .313
1896 Louisville NL 2 16 36 77 .319 38 93 .290
1904 Washington AL 2 16 36 97 .271 38 113 .252
1907 Brooklyn NL 2 16 63 67 .485 65 83 .439
1931 Cincinnati NL 2 16 56 80 .412 58 96 .377
1944 Chicago NL 2 16 73 63 .537 75 79 .487
1988 Baltimore AL 0 18 54 89 .378 54 107 .335
1992 Kansas City AL 2 16 70 74 .486 72 90 .444
1997 Chicago NL 2 16 66 78 .458 68 94 .420
2003 Detroit AL 1 17 42 102 .292 43 119 .265

This does not include five NA and two UA teams that also accomplished the
"feat".

Thanks to SABR member Mitch Soivenski for the research.

Quick hits 4/22

2010-04-22T14:20:00.003-05:00

Notes from my reading:

Larry Elder, from a column on big government economics:

An economics professor asked his class which of these two scenarios the students preferred. First scenario: Japan grows at an annual rate of 7 percent, and the Unites States grows at 4 percent. Second scenario: Japan and the United States both grow at 3 percent. Overwhelmingly, the students chose the second option. In other words, the students accepted their own lower domestic growth rather than allow Japan — a friendly nation — to outpace us. In exchange for "equality," they chose an otherwise lower standard of living. They, at least, acknowledged the existence — and accepted the price — of the trade-off. If people understood the damage done when government takes from A and gives to B, how many would sign on?

It is stunning and sad that these students have become so brainwashed by Marxist rhetoric that they would explicitly choose making everybody poorer for the sake of a Utopian fantasy. That is exactly the position that big government advocates advance, but at least many (most?) of them are ignorant that such a trade-off exists.

Elder recognizes this:

Collectivism is a bargain that most people — if they knew the real price tag — would reject. These trade-offs include lower productivity, diminished initiative, fewer jobs, rewarding reckless behavior and poor choices, a lower-than-otherwise standard of living, less economic freedom, greater government dependency, and fewer resources to spend on national security and to secure our borders.

******

Michael Barone, from a column on increasing Wall Street regulation and its beneficiaries:

Little wonder that Goldman Sachs likes the idea. It will be able to borrow at lower cost than small competitors and will be assured that its large counterparties will qualify for government bailouts. Big firms tend to favor regulation because it insulates them from competition and protects them against loss. […]

In the 2008 campaign cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics' opensecrets.org website, Goldman Sachs personnel contributed $4.5 million to Democrats and just $1.5 million to Republicans.

Add in three other big Wall Street firms — Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup — and the total take was $12.7 million to Democrats and $6.7 million to Republicans. The image of Wall Streeters as solid Republicans is as dead as J. P. Morgan himself.

******
With a (massively regressive, it should be noted) Value Added Tax push coming after the elections are safely over, it’s worth looking at their rate history elsewhere. Canada has actually lowered their VAT from the original 7% to 5%, but every other nation has later increased the rate (source: The Wall Street Journal):

Denmark 9-25%
France 13.6-19.6
Germany 10-19
Italy 12-20
Japan 3-5
Spain 12-16
Sweden 17.7-25
Switzerland 6.5-7.6
United Kingdom 8-17.5

Ahh, but maybe they reduced their income tax rates? Not so much.

******

Jay Nordlinger on our tax code:

The tax code pits Americans against one another. It pits homeowners against renters, married people against unmarried people, people with children against people without children, people with children going to college against people with children going into trades — and on and on. The tax code is packed with social policy, and bias. That’s one reason I say, a pox on it.

******

More Nordlinger:

I offer you good news out of Havana: “A surprisingly small crowd sweated and sang along to performances by Cuban rock, folk and salsa stars Saturday, at what the communist government billed as a politically important ‘concert for the homeland.’”

The article continued, “Organizers had said the show would be headlined by Cuba’s most famous folk singer, Silvio Rodriguez. But instead the pro-Castro government activist made fans wait for an hour in unrelenting afternoon sun before he took the stage, read a letter defending the single-party communist system — and then left without performing.”

Doesn’t that warm your heart?

******

From another Nordlinger column:

President Obama has another pick coming up. If I were able to question him, I might ask something like, “When you were in the Senate, you voted against both John Roberts and Samuel Alito. You said they were qualified in traditional ways, but they were conservative — therefore, in your eyes, they were unfit to serve on the Supreme Court. By your standard, should Republican senators vote against your nominees because they’re liberal?”

******

Finally, Charles Krauthammer on the fatuousness of US nuclear policy:

[T]he Washington summit was part of a larger misdirection play — Obama’s “nuclear spring.” Last week, a START treaty, redolent of precisely the kind of Cold War obsolescence Obama routinely decries. The number of warheads in Russia’s aging and decaying nuclear stockpile is an irrelevancy now that the existential U.S.-Soviet struggle is over. One major achievement of the treaty, from the point of view of Russian president Dmitri Medvedev, is that it could freeze deployment of U.S. missile defenses — thus constraining the single greatest anti-nuclear breakthrough of our time.

The left wing resistance to missile defense has never made any sense to me. I'm sure some of it was the anti-American, pro-Soviet worldview that infected the political left of the 80's, but shouldn't that silliness have been relegated to the dustbin of history as well? Is raw hatred for the US still driving opinion this issue?

Just bizarre.

Quick hits 4/20

2010-04-20T17:58:00.002-05:00

Some things i ran across in my reading:

James Taranto, on why the left needs racism:

The political left claims to love racial diversity, but it bitterly opposes such diversity on the political right. This is an obvious matter of political self-interest: Since 1964, blacks have voted overwhelmingly Democratic. If Republicans were able to attract black votes, the result would be catastrophic for the Democratic Party. […]

To keep blacks voting Democratic, it is necessary for the party and its supporters to keep alive the idea that racism is prevalent in America and to portray the Republican Party (as well as independent challengers to the Democrats, such as the tea-party movement) as racist. The election of Barack Obama made nonsense of the idea that America remains a racist country and thereby necessitated an intensifying of attacks on the opposition as racist.

Walter Williams, concluding a superb piece on the destructive effects of minimum wage laws: “Tragically, minimum wages have the unquestioned support of good-hearted, well-meaning people with little understanding who become the useful idiots of charlatans, quacks and racists.”

Via Jay Nordlinger, this Benjamin Netanyahu quote is chilling and sad: “Iran’s leaders are barreling toward developing a nuclear weapon, and openly declaring their desire to destroy Israel. In the face of these repeated pledges to remove the Jewish state from the earth, we encounter in the best case a limp reaction, and even that is fading. We do not hear the necessary rejection, no harsh denunciation, no outcry. The world is carrying on as usual, and there are those who direct their fire at us, at Israel.”

Also via JN, a great Bill Buckley quote: “When you wished long life to Fidel Castro, were you wishing a short life to his prisoners?” Unwittingly or not, yes you were.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln...

2010-04-20T11:55:00.001-05:00

How (un)healthy were the Lakers entering this playoff season? Check out the Game 1 report:

Ron Artest (sprained left thumb) will play.
Shannon Brown (sprained right thumb) will play.
Kobe Bryant (avulsion fracture, right index finger) will play.
Andrew Bynum (strained left Achilles tendon) is probable.
Jordan Farmar (strained left hamstring) is probable.
DJ Mbenga (retinal surgery, left eye) is out.
Sasha Vujacic (severe sprain, left ankle) is out.
Luke Walton (pinched nerve, back) is probable.

That, beyond anything, is why this repeat effort is so dicey.

Regulation, government and big business

2010-03-31T11:18:00.001-05:00

Love this analogy from Dooley Womack:

"I’ve always thought that regulatory risk is a lot like having Tony Soprano for a business partner. The U.S. government, our stand-in for Mr. Soprano in this analogy, may not have interests that are directly congruent with that of the business owner (as David Scatino found out in season 2 of The Sopranos), but there’s no better ally to have if you want to discourage competition."

Tuesday notes

2010-03-30T13:59:00.002-05:00

A couple of things that caught my eye in yesterday's reading:

James Taranto makes a great point about the prolific smear campaign against Tea Parties: if the journalists, bloggers and politicians were really worried about political violence and incendiary rhetoric, they would tone down their own rhetoric out of fear. The very fact that they have ramped it up is de facto evidence, as well as an admission, that they know that there is nothing to fear from Tea Parties.

Another story in Monday's BOTWT noted yet another in the endless line of global warming frauds. Taranto's comment nails it:

Those of us outside "the scientific community," meanwhile, wonder how it can get away with continuing calling itself "scientific" when its conclusions are impervious to empirical testing.

Proposed Constitutional Amendment

2010-03-30T13:27:00.002-05:00

I can't imagine why anybody, except of course the members of Congress, would not be in favor of this:

"Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives, and Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States."

Especially timely since Congress just got through passing an abominable health care law from which they specifically exempted themselves, their families, and their staffs. Which shows you how they really feel about the coming effects of this law.

The state of state education

2010-03-19T19:09:00.002-05:00

Why do we need school choice? Check out this comment from a Volokh post:

My fourth grader has been assigned four essays so far this year. They were on MLK, Michael Jordan, Dr. Charles Drew and his mother. He knows who Eleanor Roosevelt was, but not FDR. He identifies Albert Einstein as “a famous immigrant”. He knows who Rosa Parks was, but not Abe Lincoln.

This despicable school has moved from education, right past indoctrination, all the way to brainwashing. Have they no shame?

It ain't about choice

2010-03-14T18:38:00.003-05:00

Fascinating quote from Bart Stupak, on the mindset of Democrat leaders with respect to publicly funded abortion in a health care takeover bill:

[Democrat leaders are saying] "If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more."

What is fascinating is that it lays bare the lie that the political movement for abortion is about "a woman's right to choose." In fact, it is about keeping children from being born. Especially, as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg put it, the wrong kind of children.

You always feel a little queasy when the curtain is pulled back and you find out that they really feel the way your worst fears conjured.

TASS West

2010-02-28T20:28:00.003-06:00

This goes beyond even the New York Times editorial page (but probably not MSNBC):

“On February 23, ABC TV Channel 7, WTRF News (Wheeling, West Virginia/ Steubenville, Ohio), posted on its website what was originally credited as a story ‘written by’ reporter Bob Westfall. Unfortunately, though, this posting was nothing but a word-for-word re-posting of Democrat Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown’s latest press release. There was little to no difference between Brown’s press release and the ’story’ as posted on the ABC 7 news site.”

Some Health Care Summit tweets

2010-02-26T16:51:00.003-06:00

Tweets from the health care summit silliness that bear repeating, with some comments:

@Heritage: Want to talk Medicare? Obama's plan raises the Medicare payroll tax and extends it for the first time ever to investment income. [This is an incredibly disastrous, job-killing proposal - GMC]

@Heritage: The truth, Mr. President, is If govt controls both health benefits and pricing, healthcare is private in name only.

@CatoInstitute: Just because you SUBSIDIZE health care premiums does not make the premiums lower.

@Heritage: Obama's plan creates a govt-run market with price controls. That brings shortages and waiting lists.

@Heritage: President Obama isn't mentioning that putting young people in larger pool increases THEIR costs.

@philipaklein: Harkin compares insurance risk pooling to racial segregation!

@kararowland: Sen. Rockefeller: "You have to clip [the insurance companies'] wings every way you can." [What about government's much bigger wings, sir? - GMC]

@Heritage: Deficts: Obama plan costs $1+ trillion over 10 yrs, raises taxes $414 bill = $600 bill deficit [And the real cost looks more like $2.5 trillion - GMC]

@mkhammer: "Most cynical gimmick in the bill...is doc fix. Provision was taken out & it's been going along as stand-alone legislation."

@Heritage: Sen Coburn makes the salient point – benefits must be paid for with current or future taxes

Lots more good stuff, just look in my twitter feed in the politics list for the relevant time period (Feb 25th daytime).

An honest union boss

2010-02-17T16:06:00.001-06:00

Have to give this guy credit for speaking the truth:

Albany Police Officers Union President Chris Mesley says that, regardless of the faltering economy, a no-raise new contract is unacceptable.

And to hell with the public.

"I'm not running a popularity contest here," Mesley said. "If I'm the bad guy to the average citizen . . . and their taxes have go up to cover my raise, I'm very sorry about that, but I have to look out for myself and my membership."

Mesley added: "As the president of the local, I will not accept 'zeroes.' If that means . . . ticking off some taxpayers, then so be it."

Point at foot, fire gun

2010-02-12T14:02:00.003-06:00

An Instapundit reader on some of the silly attacks, based entirely on their own ignorance, emanating recently from the fever swamps:

Let’s see. ABC News didn’t know something like 2COR 4:6 refers to a bible quote. The YALE’s Daily News editorial staff likewise lacks anybody, besides the gent penning the screed about Palin, with recent exposure to anyone who has a child, wife, husband, parent or loved one in the war. And as a bonus apparently neither do any of the legions of other left wing sites jumping on the ‘bracelet scandal” bandwagon. If I were running an Information Operation (IO), say in support of an unconventional warfare campaign aimed at prompting a rebellion against an entrenched ruling class, I’d be looking to plant memes in the civilian population. Memes that suggest their rulers are detached from the population’s daily lives and concerns. Memes that make it obvious that despite an ongoing war most of the ruling class don’t have children in the military themselves and despite protestations to the contrary don’t share the population’s faith either.

If I were running an IO campaign myself, but I’m not. I’m having too much fun watching them run it against themselves.

Live in a bubble, die by the bubble.

Mainstreaming totalitarianism

2010-02-08T11:36:00.003-06:00

A comment (fifth one down) from Reason's quick note on the despicable eco police state ad run by Audi nails it:

Imagine a Holocaust movie. Jews are in concentration camps. Regularly sent to gas chambers. Suddenly one man receives documents proving he is not a jew. He's set free. He walks away. Happy End.

This is what the ad is.

Why they think driving an Audi to save yourself from a fascist future will make people want to buy them is left as an exercise for mental health professionals.

Line of the week

2010-02-01T17:31:00.002-06:00

It's only Monday, but this from John Stossel will be hard to beat:

"How many times does History need to bash the New York Times over the head with the failures of central planning before they understand?"

It fascinates me how many people continue to believe in collectivist fairy tales.

Wait, I've seen that movie before!

2010-01-28T11:48:00.003-06:00

Brilliant take from James Taranto on the suggestion that Scott Brown is presidential material:

C'mon, Scott Brown? His victory last week was undoubtedly impressive, but let's put things in perspective. Brown is merely a state senator, and by the time of the next presidential election, he will have served less than a full term in the U.S. Senate. What could possibly give anyone the idea that he's experienced enough to go to the White House?

Honest partisans on either side should be willing to admit that the experience and fitness for office of Obama and Palin in 2008, and Brown in 2012, are the same. The dishonesty comes from the Democrat who claimed last fall that Obama was qualified for office but Palin a joke, or the Republican who claims now that Palin would have done a better job than has the comically overmatched Obama.

All.The.Same.

The rationale for censorship

2010-01-24T12:29:00.002-06:00

We're too dumb to hear all opinions and still make an informed choice, according to anti-free speech activists. Bert Gall refutes such idiocy:

Democracy 21, which lobbies for strict restrictions on free speech, warns ominously that the [Citizens United] decision “is a disaster for the American people.” Common Cause asserts that the decision has created a “political crisis.” On its Web page, Public Citizen proclaims, in huge red lettering, that “SUPREME COURT UNDOES DEMOCRACY.”

This hyperbole betrays a belief—common among proponents of restrictions on political speech—that Americans, like lemmings, are merely dull creatures who can be easily led off a cliff. Thus, unless the government “protects” us from hearing corporations’ speech about politics, we’ll always vote in ways that benefit corporations because they will spend lots of money to convince us to do so.

This conclusion is as ridiculous as it is patronizing. If corporations are capable of making the public do their bidding, then why isn’t everyone driving their Edsels to Circuit City to purchase Betamax video recorders?

The answer, of course, is that Americans are not imbeciles who mindlessly succumb to corporate advertising campaigns. We are fully capable of evaluating corporate speech on its merits; thus, we do not need “protection” from it.

Such a deal

2009-12-29T16:51:00.002-06:00

with his characteristic wit, Mark Steyn sums up what the health care bill will mean in practice:

We were told we had to do it because of the however many millions of uninsured, yet this bill will leave some 25 million Americans uninsured. On the other hand, millions of young fit healthy Americans in their first jobs who currently take the entirely reasonable view that they do not require health insurance at this stage in their lives will be forced to pay for coverage they neither want nor need. On the other other hand, those Americans who’ve done the boring responsible grown-up thing and have health plans Harry Reid determines to be excessively “generous” will be subject to punitive taxes up to 40 percent. On the other other other hand, if you’re the member of a union which enjoys privileged relations with Commissar Reid you’ll be exempt from that 40 percent shakedown. On the other other other other hand, if you’re already enjoying government health care, well, you’re 83 years old and, let’s face it, it’s hardly worth us giving you that surgery for the minimal contribution you make to society, so in the cause of extending government health care to millions of people who don’t currently get it we’re going to ration it for those currently entitled to it.

Looking at the millions of Americans it leaves uninsured, and the millions it leaves with worse treatment and reduced access, and the millions it makes pay significantly more for their current health care, one can only marvel at Harry Reid’s genius: government health care turns out to be all government and no health care. Adding up the zillions of new taxes and bureaucracies and regulations it imposes on the citizenry, one might almost think that was the only point of the exercise.

That’s why I believe America’s belated embrace of government health care is going to be far more expensive and disastrous than the Euro-Canadian models. Whatever one’s philosophical objection to the Canadian health system, it is, broadly, fair: Unless you’re a cabinet minister or a bigtime hockey player, you’ll enjoy the same equality of crappiness and universal lack of access that everybody else does. But, even before it’s up-and-running, Pelosi-Reid-Obamacare is an impenetrable thicket of contradictory boondoggles, shameless payoffs, and arbitrary shakedowns.

Me? I think he's too optimistic...

Why warming is more chic than cooling was

2009-12-28T14:53:00.003-06:00

Mark Steyn nails it, as usual, with his MacLeans column about why global warmism is so appealing:

According to the CIA’s analysis, “detrimental global climatic change” threatens “the stability of most nations.” And, alas, for a global phenomenon, Canada will be hardest hit. The entire Dominion from the Arctic to the 49th parallel will be under 150 feet of ice.

Oh, wait. That was the last “scientific consensus” on “climate change,” early seventies version, as reflected in a CIA report from August 1974

Indeed. A lot of the loudest voices sounding the alarm over The Crisis Formerly Known as Global Warming are too young to even be aware that there was an equally urgent looming ice age crisis not much more than 3 decades ago.

The rest are old enough to know about it, but too dishonest to mention it, because that would be an admission that climactic scare mongering has a very poor track record.

Yet, when I reprised the line [that 30 year olds have seen no warming in their adult lives] in this space a couple of weeks back, thinking it was now safe for polite society, I was besieged by the usual “YOU LIE!!!!!!!” emails angrily denouncing me for failing to explain that the cooling trend of the oughts is in fact merely a blip in the long-term warming trend of the nineties.

Well, maybe. Then again, perhaps the warming trend of the nineties is merely a blip in the long-term ice age trend of the early seventies.

Why did apocalyptic warm-mongering take, where apocalyptic ice-mongering did not?

There were no fortunes to be made from government grants for bogus “renewable energy” projects. Unlike Al Gore, carbon billionaire, nobody got rich peddling ice offsets.

Precisely right: nobody was clever enough to figure out how to collect massive profits on the imminent ice age; today's scientists, pseudo-scientists, former VP's and assorted other hucksters have become rather more, ummm, entrepreneurial.

But profiteering only explains it for Al Gore and the few thousands of other guys who are in the pump and dump racket purely for the dough.

For the rest, the millions of true believers, it boils down to that most basic of human needs: religion.

Why did “climate change” remain the boutique scare-story of a few specialists last time round, and gain global traction this time round? In the Spectator, Maurizio Morabito puts it this way:
“Is the problem with the general public, who cannot talk about climate except in doom-laden terms, and for whom the sky is the last animist god?”

That last part explains a lot. Forty years ago conventional religious belief was certainly in decline in what we once knew as Christendom, but the hole was not yet ozone-layer sized. Once the sea of faith had receded far from shore, the post-Christian West looked at what remained and found “Gaia.” [...] [W]e’ve had climate change for four billion years. But now apparently there is an ideal state that Ma Mère has to be maintained in. A belief in a garden of Eden which man through sin has despoiled sounds familiar. But this time we get to pick. Not the Medieval Warm Period that causes the “scientific consensus” such problems, and not presumably the bucolic state the planet was in when Canada was 150 feet under, but some pristine condition somewhere in between.

When man was made in the image of God, he was fallen but redeemable. Gaia’s psychologically unhealthy progeny are merely irredeemable. Anti-humanism is everywhere [...]

Very few sciences could survive being embraced as a religion. Imagine the kind of engineering or math you’d get if it also had to function as a “faith tradition.” What’s also changed since the seventies is the nature of the UN and the transnational bureaucracies. Once it became obvious that “climate change” represents an almost boundless shakedown of functioning jurisdictions by dysfunctional basket cases, the die was cast. “Aid” is a discredited word these days and comes with too many strings attached. But eco-credits sluiced through an oil-for-food program on steroids offers splendid new opportunities for bulking up an ambitious dictator’s Swiss bank accounts.

And, because of this malign combination—corrupted science, ersatz religion, Third World opportunism—global warming took off in a way the old ice age never did. It would perhaps be too much to expect a generation of brainwashed schoolkids to shake off their brain-dead conformism. And so, between the anti-human left and an alliance of rapacious dictatorships, it now falls to a handful of economically expansive emerging nations—India, China, Brazil, a couple of others—to save the developed world from itself.

He notes the pandering to dictators without noting the very totalitarian mindset that underlies the entire movement, but that would be straying away from the point of the column: that packaging racketeering as religion, coupled with a cradle to grave propaganda campaign unmatched in modern human history, is the reason that "climate change" was able to sway the impressionable much more than the more modest campaign of the previous generation.

Quick hits 12/19

2009-12-19T15:00:00.003-06:00

More links and tweets that have caught my eye, with a bit of commentary:

Telling sentence: “The majorities opposing Obama on the Guantanamo issue are even larger than those that oppose him on national health care.”

Some encouraging medical news.

The green mind at work: Prince Charles used up seven months’ worth of the average British person’s “carbon footprint” yesterday flying to Copenhagen on an executive jet to make a speech on climate change.

Oklahoma City’s Wednesday night shoes

John Stossel: “Someone will ration health care. In America, insurance companies usually do it. In most of the rest of the world, governments do. Costs skyrocket under both systems. Its time we tried the third option: let individuals use their own money to buy health care.”

John Hinderaker: “Don't fall for the pretense that the international ‘green’ movement is about anything other than anti-free enterprise and anti-American ideology.”

Robert Heinlein: “Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.”

How many people remember that Obama, during his campaign, promised a net spending cut?

There are still 14 days left, but I’m declaring this the photo caption of the year.

And this the bookstore display of the year.

When the directions say “Roll it on over the head” this is NOT what it means.

Climate change: nature’s way.

Tiger and PC in domestic violence

Why does an attempt to transfer the right to make medical decisions from the people to government surprise anybody? Did you expect a Chicago machine politician to show an enthusiasm for civil liberties?

Foreign Object Damage asks: “Does it concern anyone else that anger is the only emotion that President Obama has displayed in public over the last month?” What, did you think he wasn’t really part of the Angry Left?

Thogocracy update: Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla) wants to imprison a local critic. This idiot exemplifies the police-state mindset.

John Stossel on the matter: “Bullies like Congressman Grayson illustrate the danger of government power; government is the only entity that can legally use force. That makes government a fearsome master. It can use force to take our money, and homes, and our freedom.”

From @Jeff_Jacoby: Ex-soldier finds a gun, turns it into the police, & is promptly arrested for possessing a firearm. Beyond Orwellian.

Happiest state ranking, Texas a disappointing 16th (Austin must be dragging us down).

Ridiculous photo caption editorializing.

Tweets from the wild Mavs-Rockets game I attended:
From STEIN_LINE_HQ: Brace yourself: Mavs found pieces from two Landry teeth embedded in gash in Dirk's right elbow
From STEIN_LINE_HQ: Landry taken straight to hospital. Mavs needed 30 minutes to clean up Dirk's elbow just to get ready for X-rays.
From @kpelton: This Houston-Dallas game will not go down as a monument to quality NBA officiating.
From @MFollowill: Hearing stories the process of picking the teeth of dirk's elbow was quite gruesome. Didn't know if it was his bone or Landry's teeth. Wow!

Quick hits 12/15

2009-12-16T15:24:00.004-06:00

Some short notes, links and thoughts:

John Hinderaker repeats what I have been stressing: “Having the far left in control of both the executive and legislative branches is a terrible thing, but on the plus side, it is clarifying: people actually have to think about where they stand on the big issue of freedom vs. socialism. Or, in other words, freedom vs. slavery.”

John Edwards: not only a sleazebag, but a common criminal.

Some who live on confiscated money hypocritically do not allow their own to be confiscated.

Ann Althouse: “The strategy for avoiding the label ‘death panel’ is: present the treatments as deadly. Voila: life panels! Now, here’s your blue pill.”

Al Gore busted lying...again.

Big Hollywood: “What’s the Difference Between the Mafia and a Hollywood Leftist? …the Mafia doesn’t go after your family.”

Incompetence update: more uninvited guests get to Obama. This is scary, at some point they won’t be quite so friendly if this continues.

Worst restaurant names ever

Calling Obama a socialist seems a bit overheated, but it does hold up to scrutiny; this is a president who has sought to restructure about 35% of the economy from the top down: health care (17% of GDP), energy (9.8%), and financial services (8%). Socialism is a Utopian fantasy of the academic class, and most of his administration is staffed with academics, so this is not exactly a surprising development.

Always remember: If you don't know who the mark is, you are the mark.

How cool is this?

Stem cell fact: Restrictions on embryonic stem cell research originated with Congress, which, each year since in 1996, has forbidden the use of federal financing for any experiment in which a human embryo is destroyed. What, you thought it was George W. Bush?

Charles Krauthammer:

Forget for a moment the economic effects of severe carbon chastity. There’s the matter of constitutional decency. If you want to revolutionize society — as will drastic carbon regulation and taxation in an energy economy that is 85 percent carbon-based — you do it through Congress reflecting popular will. Not by administrative fiat of EPA bureaucrats.

Congress should not just resist this executive overreaching, but trump it: Amend existing clean-air laws and restore their original intent by excluding CO2 from EPA control and reserving that power for Congress and future legislation.

Do it now. Do it soon. Because Big Brother isn’t lurking in CIA cloak. He’s knocking on your door, smiling under an EPA cap.

Gaming the CBO numbers.

It didn’t take long for people to long for the competence of the second Bush administration, did it?

Martin Kramer makes the superb point that there is really no difference between Bush’s infamous “Bring ‘em on” challenge and Obama’s America deprecation in that each is “effectively an open invitation to America’s adversaries, and even its allies, to elude, evade, defy and confront the United States”.

He also correctly notes that “Middle Eastern states bend in response to displays of power, although as soon as they perceive weakness, they snap back to default position.”

Quick hits 12/14

2009-12-14T17:19:00.004-06:00

John Stossel on Harry Reid: “Accusing someone of being a racist is typically a last desperate measure when someone has lost an argument.” Undeniably true.

Dr. Melissa Clouthier demonstrates that Reid had it exactly backward: “Those who fight the health care legislation fear being owned. They fear that every personal decision from cradle to grave will be manipulated by a nameless, faceless bureaucrat in Washington D.C. They fear easily accessible files, not unlike the IRS, where a government employee can know every private piece of information about the citizen’s life. They fear health care decisions made for financial expedience. In short, those who fight against this health care bill, don’t want to be owned by the government...Harry Reid is all about ownership… the government owns and the taxpayer is enslaved.”

I have used the taxation as slavery comparison before myself, and will again.

Why do people fall under the spell of hyped-up scare mongering like global warmism? Don Surber hits the nail on the head: “a lot of it is a need for religion among irreligious people. The idea of man's sins causing punishment by nature is nearly universal in history...From the ancient Greeks - not exactly a primitive people - to the modern Australian aborigines, the tribes of men share in common a desire to connect their behavior to natural phenomenon.”

Epic win indeed!

Jonathan Abrams on the challenge that is the triangle.

Lest you think that it was only Washington driving the (largely government created) housing crisis.

John Hinderaker busts Obama pretending that “the world recognized” driving Saddam out of Kuwait was a just cause. In fact, the American and international left were bitterly opposed to Bush the Elder on this and Senate Democrats voted 45-10 (including the current VP) to block it.

That said, he may not be lying here, as he has proven to be ignorant of (even recent) history on so many occasions. I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and call it ignorance.

Democrats are twice as likely as Republicans to say that they've seen a ghost and more than twice as likely to believe in astrology. Democrats are also more than twice as likely to have consulted a fortune teller.

Kim Strassel points out that the EPA’s attempt to blackmail Congress into passing some form of Cap and Tax is a boon for the legislators; they can call the bluff and avoid the wrath of the voters and leave the administration to own it.

The AP assigns 11 “fact checkers” to Palin’s book, 5 to Climategate. Remember when it was a straight news organization?

Is the 3D TV screen at the Death Star the dumbest idea ever? Because, you know, you’re there, if you want a 3D image WATCH THE GAME.

The Senate health care bill amendment to limit attorney contingency fees on medical malpractice failed by a 66-32 vote. That is conclusive proof that the pro “reform” side has no interest whatsoever in controlling medical costs. A primary goal of these various bills is to transfer wealth from doctors and patients to trial lawyers, as a political favor.

Classic dumb criminal story

Ed Morrissey: “Who could have warned us that a man who served seven years in the state legislature and three years in the Senate would not have been prepared for the toughest executive position in the Free World? We did. Repeatedly. So did John McCain, and for that matter, so did Hillary Clinton.”

Least surprising news ever: “New research by Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong at the University of Toronto levels an even graver charge: that virtuous shopping can actually lead to immoral behavior. In their study (described in a paper now in press at Psychological Science), subjects who made simulated eco-friendly purchases ended up less likely to exhibit altruism in a laboratory game and more likely to cheat and steal.”

East Anglia CRU is stepping up their hiding of climate data. These people are as crooked as an old catcher’s fingers.

This is what astroturf looks like

Quick hits 12/10

2009-12-10T17:36:00.004-06:00

John Stossel on global warmism: “With millions dying from malnutrition, poor hygiene, and malaria, the world’s poobah’s want to spend trillions on a theoretical problem.”

From @gordonkeith: I can't believe Tiger was betrayed by a reality TV chick. They usually are very private and discreet.

Copenhagen hypocrisy: "We haven't got enough limos in the country to fulfill the demand…We're having to drive them in hundreds of miles from Germany and Sweden."

The Wall Street Journal on what government can do to help create jobs: “If Congress won't reduce taxes, the best stimulus now would be for Congress to stop scaring private job creators by promising to help them. Just do nothing at all.”

Some may find the Obama/Democrat attempt to reduce charitable giving via taxation to be counterintuitive, they being the supposed party that cares about the downtrodden. But in fact it is perfectly consistent with their vision, which is to advance government as the distributor of goodies. Private charity, seen as good thing to most of us, is seen as a competitor to be crushed by those of the statist mindset.

More from @gordonkeith: I would say that I am the Tiger Woods of sexting, but I guess he is now.

Thomas Sowell: “What does ‘economic justice’ mean, except that you want something that someone else produced, without having to produce anything yourself in return?”

Along the same line: “Since this is an era when many people are concerned about ‘fairness’ and ‘social justice,’ what is your “fair share” of what someone else has worked for?”

More Sowell: “Here is a math problem for you: Assume that the legislation establishing government control of medical care is passed and that it ‘brings down the cost of medical care.’ You pay $500 a year less for your medical care, but the new costs put on employers is passed on to consumers, so that you pay $300 a year more for groceries and $200 a year more for gasoline, while the new mandates put on insurance companies raise your premiums by $300 a year, how much money have you saved?”

And one more: “Government pressures on mortgage lenders to accept less than the full amount they are owed may win votes for politicians, since there are far more borrowers than lenders. But how much future lending can be expected when the lenders know that politicians are ready to intervene at any time to prevent them from getting their money back?”

James Taranto:
Q: How many climate scientists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. There's a consensus that it's going to change, so they've decided to keep us in the dark.
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB10001424052748703499404574557583017194444.html

The (British) NHS Cancer Plan has a cut-off age of 70, meaning half of those diagnosed with cancer are ineligible for treatment. See how government health care works?

Stuff Hipsters Hate

Quick hits 12/9

2009-12-09T13:17:00.005-06:00

Some notable links, quotes and tweets:

I’m loving this idea.

Why Switzerland Has The Lowest Crime Rate In The World

Deceiver.com: “Taking a private jet to a conference on stopping global warming is a bit like traveling in a sedan chair carried by indentured servants to a summit on stopping human trafficking.”

Wow! From @djturtleface: The Grizzlies drafted a player older then their average team age this year. Bet that's a record.

Bailout, Stimulus II, Government Spending: Still Totally Unpopular

Fascism update from @Jeff_Jacoby: Global warming alarmists want the U of Wisconsin to revoke the PhD of Pat Michaels, a notable climate skeptic. http://bit.ly/5N38s9

From @BrianFDonahue via @mkhammer: Who would have ever predicted this? Obama administration predicts $30B loss on auto bailout http://bit.ly/7GUHQn

This kind of shows the triviality of the gay “marriage” debate, doesn’t it? THE issue for gays is defeating radical Islam, the rest pales.

Occupational Licensing Abuse in Texas

Dems considering a lower Medicare age requirement? Great plan for a program that is already $37 trillion underfunded with the age as it is.

John Stossel: “Hidden taxes are more pernicious because they disguise what we pay for government. We blame merchants, not our legislators, for the high price of gasoline, liquor, cigarettes and phone calls, but the money goes to the political thieves.”

Walter Willaims: "Politicians are worse than thieves. At least when thieves take your money, they don't expect you to thank them for it."

Interesting (and obvious) observation from an Indian UN delegate: “It is morally wrong for us to agree to reduce (emissions) when 40% of Indians do not have access to electricity.”

Nice illustration of the global warming mindset, a Der Spiegel piece by Christian Schwagerl: “If the rest of the world were to follow the US example in their in their approach to fossil fuels, the oceans would not only heat up, but would probably begin to boil.”

So much of the global warmist movement is about pure envy, jealousy over the success of the US and its people and a desire for us to commit economic suicide so that our people would be forced to live as Europeans do, instead of the lifestyles that we have earned.

The effort to sell health care reform as the solution to our problems is meant for politically uninformed and unsophisticated voters. One thing the last few months has shown us is that the more people learn about the issues, the more likely they are to reject an increased government role.

Vaclav Klaus, a man who knows a little bit about tyranny: "The biggest source of dangers for freedom, democracy, the market economy, and prosperity at the end of the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st century ceased to be socialism, but it is now an ambitious, very arrogant, and almost unscrupulous ideology of a political movement . . . of environmentalism."

Quick hits 12/8

2009-12-08T16:57:00.002-06:00

Some quick tweets and links that have caught my eye:

I do have to give Obama credit for his sense of humor, in making light of the stimulus job fudging fiasco by following his ceremonial Thanksgiving turkey pardon with “All told, I believe it’s fair to say that we have saved or created four turkeys.”

AARP *opposes* the McCain amendment to block any Medicare benefit reductions, with the explanation "The legislation does not reduce any guaranteed Medicare benefits." They don’t even pretend to care more about seniors than they do about Democrats anymore, do they?

Not that that should be construed as me disagreeing with Medicare cuts, but I would like to see them as standalone policy, not as part of increasing government’s role in medical care. The growth of government’s role is one of the primary forces that has distorted the market and gotten us into this inflationary spiral.

From @forumbluegold: RE: Artest and Hennessy. I'm very glad all the stupid s&$#% I did at 19 doesn't end up in magazines. (Amen to that!)

Charles Johnson completes his transformation from right wing extremist to raving moonbat. I’m guessing he went from being a Phillies fan to being a Yankees fan this year as well.

Health care bill gives states incentives to drop out of Medicaid.

A roundup of Tiger Woods jokes.

Don’t know the source of this quote, but it’s money: “You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

Stimulus math.

Another thing government should not be doing.

House of cards tumbling: Australia ditches cap and trade in Climategate's aftermath

Culture of Corruption update.

Your stimulus dollars at work.

Paying them to lie

2009-12-01T13:34:00.002-06:00

John Stossel on politicians and health care:

When you knowingly pay someone to lie to you, we call the deceiver an illusionist or a magician. When you unwittingly pay someone to do the same thing, I call him a politician. [...]

I happily suspend disbelief when a magician says he'll saw a woman in half. That's entertainment. But when Harry Reid says he'll give 30 million additional people health coverage while cutting the deficit, improving health care and reducing its cost, it's not entertaining. It's incredible. [...]

To be deficit-reducers, the health care bills depend on a $200 billion cut in Medicare. Current law requires cuts in payments to doctors, but let's get real: Those cuts will never happen. The idea that Congress will "save $200 billion" by reducing payments for groups as influential as doctors and retirees is laughable. Since 2003, Congress has suspended those "required" cuts each year.

Our pandering congressmen rarely cut. They just spend. [...]

Medicare is already $37 trillion in the hole. Yet the Democrats proudly cite Medicare when they demand support for the health care overhaul. If a business pulled the accounting tricks the politicians get away with, the owners would be in prison.

Quick hits 12/1

2009-12-01T13:30:00.001-06:00

Some quick tweets and links that have caught my eye:

From @mkhammer: Obama rhetoric flashback, March '09: "So, let me be clear...that cause could not be more just."

From @MoRocca via @freeloosedirt: Obama to send 30,002 troops to Afghanistan (congrats, Tareq and Michaele Salahi! This time you're invited.)

Interesting, as it moves the timeline back: @senatus: Harkin: We will deliver a health care bill to Obama before the State of the Union (on MSNBC). (via @wonkroom)

Bacon: the gateway meat

The Next Right: “please explain why the Downing Street memo was definitive proof of a rush to judgment and Climategate isn't.”

Why Tiger’s not talking

Why the need to rig climate “science”? Money, of course.

Government in action.

Did I say the good war?

2009-12-01T13:23:00.004-06:00

Byron York on the Afghanistan as "the good war" lie coming home to roost:

If the base didn't support it, then why did candidates promise it? Because Democratic voters and candidates were playing a complex game. Nearly all of them hated the war in Iraq and wanted to pull Americans out of that country. But they were afraid to appear soft on national security, so they pronounced the smaller conflict in Afghanistan one they could support. Many of them didn't, really, but for political expediency they supported candidates who said they did. Thus the party base signed on to a good war-bad war strategy. ...

But now, with Democrats in charge of the entire U.S. government and George Bush nowhere to be found, Pelosi and others in her party are suddenly very, very worried about U.S. escalation in Afghanistan. "There is serious unrest in our caucus," the speaker said recently. There is so much unrest that Democrats who show little concern about the tripling of already-large budget deficits say they're worried about the rising cost of the war.

It is in that atmosphere that Obama makes his West Point speech. He had to make certain promises to get elected. Unlike some of his supporters, he has to remember those promises now that he is in office. So he is sending more troops. But he still can't tell the truth about so many Democratic pledges to support the war in Afghanistan: They didn't mean it.

Fantastic finish

2009-12-01T12:10:00.002-06:00

For those of you who missed it (and why wouldn't you have?), the CFL's Grey Cup (Canadian football's Super Bowl) had an ending for the ages.

Saskatchewan led, 27-25, as Montreal lined up to try a game/championship winning field goal as time was expiring. And missed it, wide right, but...Saskatchewan had 12 men on the field, penalty.

Montreal made the second attempt, pulling out a dramatic 28-27 win.

I'm sure games have ended like this before, in fact I think Ive seen one, but for such a thing to decide a championship, even of a minor league, is staggering.

Yeah, they know

2009-11-30T17:09:00.003-06:00

John Hinderaker:

"Democrats' polling must be showing something similar (to the national polls showing major public disapproval of the health care bills). Otherwise, House members wouldn't have competed for permission to vote against it, Senators wouldn't have demanded nine-figure payoffs to vote for it, and Harry Reid wouldn't have held the vote on a Saturday night."

It also explains the urgency in getting a vote before Christmas break, as they know that it will lose votes rapidly as we enter an actual election calendar year. Which is kind of odd, really, the thought that voters will forget what happened in December but not what happens after January 1.

Your brain on union

2009-11-25T17:22:00.002-06:00

Gotta love how the Los Angeles School District, awash in red ink, ordered a hiring freeze:

The only exceptions to the hiring freeze will be for classroom teachers, principals, assistant principals, cafeteria managers, school police officers, bus drivers, teachers' assistants, education aides, special education assistants and plant managers.

In other words, they ordered a hiring freeze except for union workers, whom they will continue to hire without regard to minor concerns like budget deficits.

The entire state is an object lesson in how not to govern. That they can still find new ways to sell out the people to unions is a testament to the enduring creativity of the bureaucratic mind.

The Ultimate Bureaucrat

2009-11-17T12:13:00.001-06:00

Pg. 132: The Pelosi bill creates the Health Choices Administration headed by the Health Choices Commissioner. Among the commissioner's duties (he will be appointed by the president and approved by the Senate): "establishment of qualified health benefits plan standards," "administration of individual affordability credits under subtitle C of title III, including determination of eligibility for such credits," auditing insurance exchange participants to provide "accountability" for meeting his established standards and billing those insurance companies for the audits, collecting unspecified "data," penalizing, suspending payments to, and terminating insurance plans that don't meet exchange standards, establishing " effective and efficient administration of the Health Insurance Exchange," and "development of standards for the definitions of terms used in health insurance coverage, including insurance-related terms."

Yeah, I want an unelected, unaccountable hack to have this kind of power.

PC kills

2009-11-08T11:52:00.002-06:00

Dana Loesch:

"While DHS was busy putting tea parties and anyone who dares fly the official military Gadsen flag on the domestic terrorist watch list, a real terrorist was spouting off online, glorifying suicide bombings and our mission in Iraq. I mean, I’m sure if I drink enough I might be able to understand the perception that a bunch of middle-class people peacefully dissenting with certain Washington policies are way more dangerous than a dude who talked about terrorist stuff on social sites and had gotten authorities’ attention six months ago."

It is quite clear that political correctness killed those (currently) 13 people at Fort Hood. The fear of maybe, possibly offending somebody by removing a jihadist from our military had tragic consequences this time.

Do more need to die, or can we start being honest?

Seizing power by force

2009-11-08T11:45:00.001-06:00

Jennifer Rubin:

“One would think such an historic and noble action, as the Democrats have styled it, would enjoy robust support from the full spectrum of the House Democratic caucus. But in this case, only those who occupy safe seats (or think they do) can be corralled. If Pelosi gets her 218 votes, it will be unprecedented. It is fair to say that never will a piece of legislation this sweeping (and damaging) have been passed over the opposition of so much of the electorate and on the votes of such a narrow ideological slice of the governing class.”

The contempt for the American people shown by the vote is breathtaking.

Hypocrisy's poster child

2009-11-04T12:56:00.003-06:00

VDH on charlatan Al Gore:

“To distill Gorism is to live in a 1,000 sq. ft. solar house, bike to work, and take the train on long distances; but to promote Gorism, one lives in a mansion, jets on private planes, and is chauffeured from airport to conference center—a rather heavy carbon footprint indeed."

Bingo. That he's only been doing it to line his pockets should be clear to everybody by now.

On appeasement

2009-11-02T17:29:00.002-06:00

Is this thing on?

OK, then check out this quote from the great John Howard, former Australian Prime Minister:

"If you imagine that you can buy immunity from fanatics by curling yourself in a ball, apologising for the world - to the world - for who you are and what you stand for and what you believe in, not only is that morally bankrupt, but it’s also ineffective. Because fanatics despise a lot of things and the things they despise most is weakness and timidity. There has been plenty of evidence through history that fanatics attack weakness and retreating people even more savagely than they do defiant people."

Hopefully our president realizes this very basic fact.

Health care according to Robert Reich

2009-10-14T14:39:00.003-05:00

From a 2007 speech at Cal-Berkeley that is in the news:

* Younger people should pay more
* Healthier people should pay more
* Older people should just die- they’re “too expensive”
* There should be “less innovation” in medical technology
* You should not expect to live longer than your parents.

Gotta credit him for his honesty.

Patronage in the Baucus Bill

2009-10-13T16:27:00.002-05:00

Michael Barone, in a piece on hidden costs in the Baucus health care bill, notes some of its cash transfers from states with less politically powerful senators to states with Senate leaders:

Kimberley Strassel points out that well-placed senators are getting special favors in the bill. Majority Leader Harry Reid gets the feds to pick up Nevada's extra Medicaid spending. Charles Schumer gets many high-cost insurance plans in New York exempted from tax. How long before other members seek similar breaks for their states?

For the bill as a whole

We can reasonably conclude that the Baucus bill -- or whatever similar measure Reid and Schumer concoct -- would vastly and permanently increase public sector spending and impose a crushing burden on the private sector in a weak economy. That burden would be particularly heavy on low earners forced to buy expensive policies or else pay stiff fines, with money they would otherwise receive as wages or salaries.

I don't think anybody seriously disputes (although most supporters will attempt to obscure the point) that any bill will be particularly tough on the middle class and below, as they are the ones least equipped to take on significant increases in their medical costs.

Free speech under assault

2009-10-13T16:19:00.004-05:00

Mark Steyn on the relevance to Americans of Canada's anti-free speech kangaroo court:

Why is this relevant to Americans? Because the superficial fluffily benign language of multiculturalism that comes so naturally to our rulers provides a lot of cover for the shriveling of free speech [...]

As Canadians have discovered, liberty is lost very quietly and quickly. And trying to get it back is slow and painful — particularly at a time when artists, universities, publishers, and others who congratulate themselves incessantly on their truth-telling courage find increasingly pre-emptive self-censorship the better part of valor.

The Europe of 2020 will have considerably less freedom of expression than today. American exceptionalism is going to have to be exceptionally exceptional to hold out against that trend.

To that end, the "hate crime" movement to elevate some crimes over other identical crimes based on thought-crime and the efforts by the current administration to criminalize dissent against the president should give us all pause.

Some quick hits

2009-10-13T16:12:00.004-05:00

A lot of the short quotes or links I used to post here now go to my Twitter feed, since it takes so much less effort.

James Taranto: “Why did Obama win the Nobel Peace Prize? Because he pandered to the prejudices of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.”

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JammieWearingFool on the terrorist plot against a GOP congressman: “I blame MSNBC, CNN, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the leftwing blogosphere for fostering this climate of hate against Republicans.”

Consistent standards… no fair!

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Why didn’t Pinch Sulzberger get a cabinet position?

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Jules Crittenden: "It's a sad state of affairs when a Frenchman mocks an American president and you have to go with the Frog."

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Durable goods orders, housing sales dropped in August. Direct result of Cash for Clunkers diverting money from one kind of purchase to another? Probably, every time government incentivizes one kind of behavior it’s at the expense of another.

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“I can recall no other major American speech in which the narcissism of a leader has been quite so pronounced.” In the Washington Post, mind you, on Obama's UN debacle.

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The Empire State Building was illuminated red and yellow for a week, celebrating China's 60 years of communist rule. Really? What a disgusting gesture, celebrating that soul crushing death cult.

Kick me again! But why?

2009-10-09T16:33:00.003-05:00

John Hinderaker:

What is striking to me is that the Democrats seem to be doubling down: the stimulus bill on top of TARP; government medicine; cap and trade, still not dead; and now talk of Stimulus II. The Democrats are averting their eyes from the popular outcry against their policies and are hoping–somehow–to escape retribution at the polls. I liken them to a canoeist braving the rapids with his eyes closed, hoping for the best.

It's as if they have decided that becoming a minority party for a generation is worth is if they can just transfer enough wealth, power and control from the people to the federal government. Because our history over the last 80 years has shown that once freedoms have been seized, it's hard to get them back.

They know that the people will never willingly submit to the kind of totalitarian rule that they hold as an ideal. Thus the feeling of urgency to take advantage of this small window to create the kind of Utopian fantasy world where elites make all decisions and the population is subservient, or wait a few decades for a future generation who has forgotten the events of 2009.

How to save energy

2009-10-09T15:18:00.001-05:00

The brilliant wit of James Tarnato:

"A world-first experiment to try and reduce energy use for the day on the Isles of Scilly was foiled after a turn in the weather caused participants to use more electricity," London's Daily Telegraph reports.

In the day-long experiment, Scilly people were asked to follow "a series of guidelines including switching off unnecessary lights and TVs when not in use and only filling kettles with the exact amount of water required." Result: Energy use dropped, but by only 1%.

The reason: "Organiser Dr Matt Prescott said the experiment was undermined by bad weather--which saw people using more power than usual." The experiment might well have been a success had it been conducted a day earlier, when it was sunny and warm.

Which leads us to a thought. What if there were a way of changing the climate so that the weather was warmer all over the world? We realize this is probably unrealistic, but if it could be done, it would be a great way to save energy.

Pow!

The gift that keeps on giving

2009-10-09T15:10:00.002-05:00

I'm talking, of course, about John Kerry, who has the hat.

His latest gem: "Let me emphasize something very strongly as we begin this discussion. The United States has already this year alone achieved a 6% reduction in emissions simply because of the downturn in the economy, so we are effectively saying we need to go another 14%."

So the consort/Senator doesn't really have a problem with the recession, indeed, he would like to see it deepen into a permanent depression. No wonder he has been a staunch supporter of the "Stimulus", a massive new energy tax and a government takeover of the health care industry, measures which are steps in that direction.

Unfair criticism

2009-10-06T14:32:00.001-05:00

Rich Lowry:

A buzz-generating Saturday Night Live skit mocked Pres. Barack Obama for not yet having accomplished anything. Not fair. Obama has been on a roll.

In nine months, he has breathed life into the Republican party, boosted pro-lifers, tarnished the reputation of regulation, bolstered traditional values, increased the public’s desire for immigration restriction, and shifted independent voters rightward. If only RNC chairman Michael Steele were so deadly effective.

What's good for Republicans is bad for the country

2009-10-05T15:54:00.003-05:00

Politics is full of contradiction. For example, for Obama to have a successful presidency almost certainly requires Republicans taking control of the House in 2010, or at least coming very close to evenly splitting it.

Similarly, if Obama continues to be the epic failure he has been thus far, making Republicans taking back the White House in 2012 likely, it will be disastrous for the country at an extremely dangerous point in history, as Victor Davis Hanson explains:

I am not a fan of the Obama agenda. But I am don’t want an impotent Commander in Chief abroad for three very dangerous years to come. So I am worried that the U.S. will be crippled with a weak, unpopular executive, as happened to Bush (35% approvals) in 2007-8. Our currency is tanking. Our debts are climbing. Our energy needs are breaking us. Our borrowing is out of control. The country is divided in a 1859/1968 mode. And the world is smiling as Obama, now hesitant and without the old messianic confidence, presides over our accepted inevitable decline. The country needs to buck up and meet these challenges head on, since the world smells blood, whether in Iran, Russia, the Mideast, North Korea, or South America, and in a mere 9 months of the reset button.

I think this is exactly right. No matter how misguided Obama's domestic agenda is to you (and to me it's incredibly foolish), we badly need him to find some wisdom and intestinal fortitude in foreign affairs. This is not an era when kicking the can down the road for four years can be overcome.

Top Ten Reasons to Accept That Job Offer from David Letterman

2009-10-02T13:39:00.001-05:00

Pure genius from Jim Treacher:

Top Ten Reasons to Accept That Job Offer from David Letterman

10. Get to find out "Worldwide Pants" refers to his breathing
9. Whenever he has trouble performing, he can always count on Paul
8. Stupid Prostate Tricks
7. Pillow talk includes fond remembrances of working with Calvert DeForest
6. "Can Jay do this? Huh? Can Jay do this?"
5. Share in wistful late-life transition from "My girlfriend doesn't understand me" to "My wife doesn't understand me"
4. Will It Rise?
3. Tries to be nice about it when he passes you off to Biff Henderson
2. "Whoops, looks like Cheney isn't the only one who shoots people in the face"

And the Number One Reason to Accept That Job Offer from David Letterman:

1. After the sex, he lets you keep the Palin wig

Father/son champs

2009-10-01T16:37:00.003-05:00

With training camps open, time to update the list of father/son combos who have won NBA championships:

1. Matt Guokas Sr./Matt Guokas Jr.
2. Rick Barry/Brent Barry
3. Bill Walton/Luke Walton

Obama's Iranian options

2009-10-01T13:50:00.003-05:00

Stratfor has a must-read piece up on Obama's options in Iran (and Afghanistan).

Certainly, the naive idea that the problem with Iran stems from the US's refusal to engage in talks with Tehran or just be nicer to them has been thoroughly debunked. So where to go from here?

They suggest three possible courses:

First, he can impose crippling sanctions against Iran. But that is possible only if the Russians cooperate. Moscow has the rolling stock and reserves to supply all of Iran’s fuel needs if it so chooses, and Beijing can also remedy any Iranian fuel shortages. Both Russia and China have said they don’t want sanctions; without them on board, sanctions are meaningless.

Second, Obama can take military action against Iran, something easier politically and diplomatically for the United States to do itself rather than rely on Israel. By itself, Israel cannot achieve air superiority, suppress air defenses, attack the necessary number of sites and attempt to neutralize Iranian mine-laying and anti-ship capability all along the Persian Gulf. Moreover, if Israel struck on its own and Iran responded by mining the Strait of Hormuz, the United States would be drawn into at least a naval war with Iran — and probably would have to complete the Israeli airstrikes, too.

And third, Obama could choose to do nothing (or engage in sanctions that would be the equivalent of doing nothing). Washington could see future Iranian nuclear weapons as an acceptable risk. But the Israelis don’t, meaning they would likely trigger the second scenario. It is possible that the United States could try to compel Israel not to strike — though it’s not clear whether Israel would comply — something that would leave Obama publicly accepting Iran’s nuclear program.

And this, of course, would jeopardize Obama’s credibility. It is possible for the French or Germans to waffle on this issue; no one is looking to them for leadership. But for Obama simply to acquiesce to Iranian nuclear weapons, especially at this point, would have significant diplomatic and domestic political ramifications. Simply put, Obama would look weak — and that, of course, is why the Iranians announced the second nuclear site. They read Obama as weak, and they want to demonstrate their own resolve. That way, if the Russians were thinking of cooperating with the United States on sanctions, Moscow would be seen as backing the weak player against the strong one. The third option, doing nothing, therefore actually represents a significant action. [...]

In Iran, Ahmadinejad clearly perceives that challenging Obama is low-risk and high reward. If he can finally demonstrate that the United States is unwilling to take military action regardless of provocations, his own domestic situation improves dramatically, his relationship with the Russians deepens, and most important, his regional influence — and menace — surges. If Obama accepts Iranian nukes without serious sanctions or military actions, the American position in the Islamic world will decline dramatically. The Arab states in the region rely on the United States to protect them from Iran, so U.S. acquiescence in the face of Iranian nuclear weapons would reshape U.S. relations in the region far more than a hundred Cairo speeches.

If his history holds, Obama will choose weakness, but I still hold out hope that he will come to support tough sanctions backed by a credible threat of military action.

This is, oh, about 1000x more important than crafting and passing a health care bill, but never underestimate the tendency of this president to dust an end table while ignoring the elephant in the room.

"President Pantywaist"

2009-09-26T13:46:00.004-05:00

It can't be a good sign if even Euros are starting to notice your spinelessness:

Obama has done more to restore Russia’s hegemonial potential in Eastern and Central Europe than even Vladimir Putin. . . . If the word is out that America is in retreat, it will soon find it has no friends.

Obama's approval ratings are sinking here, but through the roof with our enemies!

Exposing the con

2009-09-26T13:00:00.002-05:00

Kudos to Senator Orrin Hatch for attempting to insert the following amendment to the Senate Finance Committee markup of the Baucus bill:

The purpose of this amendment is simple. If the secretary of Health and Human Services certifies that more than 1 million Americans would lose the current coverage of their choice because of this bill, then this bill would not go into effect.

It seems like a very, very simple but perfect amendment for those of us who have integrity. This amendment is simply trying to safeguard President Obama's pledge to the American people, you'll get -- that you will get to keep what you have.

Not suprisingly, every Democrat on the committee voted "no."

As John at Powerline noted:

One of President Obama's mantras with regard to the Democrats' health care proposal (whatever it turns out to be) is that if you like your present health insurance coverage, you will get to keep it. More recently, when the fraudulent nature of that pledge was revealed, he changed the formula to "the bill won't require you to lose your coverage." That's right; it won't require you to lose your coverage, it will just cause you to lose your coverage.

And, to expand on that theme, it is designed to cause you to lose your coverage and have to rely on government for insurance, as well as cede government the power to make all of the health care decisions that were formerly yours.

Nobody seriously disputes that any of the proposed bills will cause 10's of millions to lose their insurance coverage. The divide now is between those who try to cover up that fact and those who try to expose it.

This is not about health care, never has been. It's about control, a massive transfer of wealth and power from the people to the federal government. People who are dependent on government for survival are easier to control, and their votes are easier to earn since all you have to do is buy them.

This whole debate, like so many others. is about government vs freedom. The people have come down squarely on the side of freedom. The question now is whether the politicians in power will accede to the will of the people, or whether their natural totalitarian instincts will rule the day.

How government works

2009-09-25T13:39:00.001-05:00

Another example of what government is all about, and why I'm libertarian:

The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday that four New Jersey congressmen and its own former commissioner unduly influenced the process that led to its decision last year to approve a patch for injured knees, an approval it is now revisiting.

The agency's scientific reviewers repeatedly and unanimously over many years decided that the device, known as Menaflex and manufactured by ReGen Biologics Inc., was unsafe because the device often failed, forcing patients to get another operation.

But after receiving what an F.D.A. report described as "extreme," "unusual" and persistent pressure from four Democrats from New Jersey — Senators Robert Menendez and Frank R. Lautenberg and Representatives Frank Pallone Jr. and Steven R. Rothman — agency managers overruled the scientists and approved the device for sale in December.

All four legislators made their inquiries within a few months of receiving significant campaign contributions from ReGen, which is based in New Jersey, but all said they had acted appropriately and were not influenced by the money.

The administration that keeps on giving

2009-09-21T12:14:00.001-05:00

Lest you think that Carterian idiocy only emanates from the former president himself, I give you his National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski (from a Daily Beat interview):

DB: How aggressive can Obama be in insisting to the Israelis that a military strike might be in America’s worst interest?

Brzezinski: We are not exactly impotent little babies. They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?

DB: What if they fly over anyway?

Brzezinski: Well, we have to be serious about denying them that right. That means a denial where you aren’t just saying it. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a Liberty in reverse.

Three decades later, it's still gives you chills to think that these people ran the country for four years.

Don't be fooled by the defunding votes

2009-09-18T13:44:00.002-05:00

Instapundit reader Kevin O'Brien notices the elephant in the chamber:

It’s a typical these-voters-are-such-rubes stunt; the House and Senate voted to defund ACORN on different bills.

The Senate bill is a housing bill, the House bill the federal takeover of student loans. Each bill will wind up in conference committee where the ACORN ban can be quietly stripped out, behind closed doors and secure from prying eyes. Then the org can keep on doing its important work of voter fraud and pandering to presumed pedophiles.

The most useful principle to hold close when considering members of Congress: they’re all crooks.

I'm sure that portion of the media that still thinks child sex slavery is wrong will keep an eye on this, just reminding you not to buy into the hype.

The despicable Jimmy Carter

2009-09-17T12:55:00.005-05:00

Will Collier nicely sums up the man who wakes up every morning thanking God that there was a James Buchanan to keep him from being the worst US president:

For everybody old enough to remember what life was like under Jimmy's stupefying mixture of sophomoric self-righteousness, boundless naivete and gobsmacking incompetence, shoving Mr. Peanut back under the spotlight in his bitter dotage does nothing to help Obama, who's been looking like Carter II since a few hours after his inauguration.

And for those too young to remember history's greatest monster (thanks, Glenn), Jimmah's empty slander is just another sign of the unbecoming moral vanity at the heart of the modern Left, to say nothing of its overweening intolerance for any hint of dissent. People know good and well that being opposed to socialized medicine or trillion-dollar deficits doesn't make them racist. Calling them ugly names isn't going to make them cower away in fear--it's going to make them more convinced than ever that they're in the right.

Except for the true believer DailyKos types, lefties must cringe every time Carter opens his mouth. He's been around too long to be a right wing plant, but he's certainly king of the useful idiots for the righty cause.

UPDATE 9/18/09: James Taranto comes up with an alternate explanation that would be believable if we thought Carter was that clever: "Carter may have a conflict of interest in attacking Americans on Obama's behalf. Perhaps he secretly hopes Obama fails so miserably as to supplant Carter as the worst president of the past century."

Time to revamp the HR Department

2009-09-17T12:52:00.002-05:00

Ouch:

When SEIU folks are shown on video beating up a black man in a parking lot after your town hall, when you’re caught on tape giving a top secret press conference and you totally fumble when asked about said beating, when your party is implicated in calling in the muscle to stifle dissent, the last thing you do is, say, hire SEIU’s former media person.

Unless you’re Russ Carnahan.

Presidential hate

2009-09-16T13:42:00.004-05:00

Jay Nordlinger takes on the (frankly absurd) notion that hate directed against the president is on the rise in this administration:

Let me make a couple of predictions: I predict that the chairman of the Republican National Committee will never say, “I hate the Democrats and everything they stand for. This [politics, basically] is a struggle of good and evil. And we’re the good.”

Howard Dean said that about the GOP: “I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for. . . .”

I predict that an editor of a conservative magazine will never write a piece called “The Case for Obama Hatred,” beginning, “I hate President Barack Obama.”

A New Republic editor did this, about Bush.

And there is increasing worry about assassination: that someone will take a shot, not just at the president, but at the first black president, which would be extra-catastrophic for the country. A few protesters have carried signs urging violence against Obama, or smacking of violence. Let me make some more predictions:

I predict that a network talk-show host will not show a video of President Obama giving a speech and put the following words on the screen: “SNIPERS WANTED.”

Craig Kilborn of CBS did that to George W. Bush.

I predict that U.S. senators will not joke about killing Obama.

In 2006, Bill Maher had a conversation with John Kerry. He asked Kerry what he’d gotten his wife for her birthday. Kerry said he had treated her to a vacation in Vermont. Maher said, “You could have went to New Hampshire and killed two birds with one stone.” Kerry replied, “Or I could have gone to 1600 Pennsylvania and killed the real bird with one stone.” [...]

I predict that a New York official will not tell a graduating class about assassinating President Obama.

Also in 2006, comptroller Alan Hevesi said to students at Queens College that Sen. Charles Schumer, his fellow Democrat, would “put a bullet between the president’s eyes if he could get away with it.”

I predict that no columnist for a leading European newspaper, and leading world newspaper, will write, “John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr. — where are you now that we need you?”

Charlie Brooker of the Guardian did that to George W. Bush.

I predict that no major writer will write a novel debating the morality of killing President Obama.

Nicholson Baker did that to Bush, with Checkpoint.

I predict that no filmmaker will make a “fictional documentary” that fantasizes — and I’m afraid that is the word — about murdering President Obama.

Some Brits did that to President Bush with Death of a President.

Dear readers, I have made very, very safe predictions. If a CBS talk-show host pictured President Obama and said “SNIPERS WANTED,” he would lose his job, of course. He would never work in the media again. I wonder what else would happen to him.

I could go on, but you’ve heard enough. [...]

Regular readers may be sick of hearing this story — I think I’ve told it twice — but let me tell it again. I tell the story, not because the person featured in it is evil, but for the opposite reason: She is basically wonderful. She just had a fever, that hate-Bush, kill-Bush fever.

I was at an Upper East Side dinner party, and talk turned to 9/11. I mentioned that the “Pennsylvania plane” was apparently destined for the Capitol or the White House. My hostess said, “I wish President Bush had been killed that day.”

The school speech wasn't so innocent after all

2009-09-16T12:32:00.003-05:00

I'm shocked, shocked to read this:

"When critics lashed out at President Obama for scheduling a speech to public school students this month, accusing him of wanting to indoctrinate children to his politics, his advisers quickly scrubbed his planned comments for potentially problematic wording."

Thus the claim that the only objectionable thing was the Department of Education's (later removed) indoctrinatory lesson plan is debunked.

Quote of the day

2009-09-16T12:20:00.002-05:00

From Mike Gonzalez of the Heritage Foundation (via Don Surber) on the ACORN child prostitution aid scandal: “It should have been ‘60 Minutes’ doing this stuff — not two people whose combined ages are 45.”

Surber notes that Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward were 28 and 29, respectively, on the night of the Watergate break-in.