Monday, March 18, 2024

Uh-oh

 Knicks' OG Anunoby to miss time after elbow flare-up

...Anunoby has had a post-surgical flare-up in his right elbow and is expected to miss more than just Monday night's game against the Golden State Warriors...

...
[The] timeline is currently unclear.

The Knicks are 15-2 with him in the lineup since Jan. 1 and 8-10 [without him]. Anunoby's plus-297 plus-minus since joining the Knicks is third best in the NBA in that span...

Plus 297! Unbelievable. WHAT a trade for Manny Hatty.

Anunoby... is holding opponents to 35% shooting as the closest defender since Jan. 1, best in the NBA...

Both ends of the court! Just unbelievable.

FTs

Indiana Marymount 103 Gilbert 🕱 108
Procedure Addressers 98 Arison Heat 91
Boston City 119 Zollner Pistons 94

This is Bloomberg. It's a VERY good point

 

Trump’s Empty Pockets Make Him an Overseas Mark

The financial squeeze on the former president, who says he can’t come up with the cash to appeal his $454 million civil fraud judgment, intensifies his threat to national security.

Donald Trump, the self-described multibillionaire and “king of debt,” said he doesn’t have enough cash on hand to appeal a $454 million civil fraud judgment against him. Embarrassing, of course. ...

...his financial challenges make him a national security threat — something that has been a reality ever since he was elected president in 2016. He’s always been willing to sell his name to the highest bidder. There’s no reason to believe that Trump, whose businesses collected millions of dollars from foreign governments and officials while he was president, won’t have a for-sale sign out now that he’s struggling with the suffocating weight of court judgments.

Trump is being criminally prosecuted for allegedly misappropriating classified documents and stashing them at Mar-a-Lago, his home in Palm Beach, Florida. ...Trump’s motivations for taking the documents are unknown, but it’s reasonable to wonder whether he pondered trying to sell them. Monetizing the White House has been something of a family affair, after all. His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has been busy trading financially on his proximity to the former president, for example.

All of this was troubling enough during and after Trump’s first stay in the Oval Office. He wasn’t under the kind of financial pressure he’s contending with now, however, and it makes all of his current financial maneuvers even more questionable — and certainly much more threatening. ...

Did Trump flip-flop on his support for banning the social media platform TikTok from the US because Jeff Yass, a huge donor, has a large investment in the Chinese company that owns it? ...Did Trump meet with Elon Musk, the wealthy entrepreneur whose automotive, communication and space exploration assets have relied on close business and financial relationships with the federal government, because he needed to raise money quickly in the wake of the civil fraud judgment? ...

...New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who successfully prosecuted Trump for lying about the value of his assets to banks and other parties, can seize his assets on March 25 to satisfy the $454 million judgment against him. 

...In a court filing on Monday, Trump’s lawyers said that the judgment would require him to have cash reserves of $1 billion and that he doesn’t have the money. Trump testified during a deposition last year that he had “substantially in excess of 400 million in cash,” a sum that was “going up very substantially every month.” That was either untrue or Trump, who has a long history of lying, wants to avoid using his own money or somehow burned through that magical pile of cash over the last year.

Trump recently posted a $91.6 million bond to postpone payment of a verdict in his defamation loss to the writer E. Jean Carroll. ...

But bond underwriters balked at sponsoring Trump for the $454 million fraud verdict. Trump’s court filing Monday said that the developer had approached 30 companies to secure a bond but that he came up empty-handed. ...

Trump, who has routinely inflated the value of what he owns, has a net worth of about $3.1 billion, according to Bloomberg News. Most of this is tied up in illiquid real estate holdings...He has also always been fond of borrowing heavily against his assets, so it’s never entirely clear how much debt he’s carrying at any given time.

...

...the going is likely to get rough for Trump as this plays out, and he’s likely to become more financially desperate with each passing day. That’s going to make him easy prey for interested lenders — and an easy mark for overseas interests eager to influence US policy.

An EXCELLENT, excellent article by Timothy L. O'Brien for Bloomberg.

“You wouldn’t even allow him in your house!”

Nancy Pelosi knows how to stab right in Trumpie’s most vulnerable spot. That is exquisite, rapier sharp. We let dogs in our houses. Not Trumpie.“He’s not worth it.” “Beaded curtain.” That woman is phenomenal.

The Association Says They’re an “82-game league”

The Arison Heat didn’t get the memo.

I paid ~$2,000 for three seats to watch us play Wind in December. I would have paid more for that game. I’d pay 10% of that now. 

The Arison Heat cheat the regular season, ticket-buying fan. I’m not even following them anymore until and if, they start beating top teams, against whom they are 0-11 this season. Wins over the Zollner Pistons this weekend, who cares? We’re 7th in the Least; we’re on pace to win 45 games, exactly the average number of wins we have had the previous nine seasons. This will make ten years where you can ink it in in October: Miami will win 45 games. They don’t play until the playoffs. Fine, that’s when I’ll tune in.

Pitt, Oklahoma, St. Johns Decline Invite to NIT

I don't know about those other two schools, but for Pitt, I wouldn't go either. It's a crime that they got shut out of the NCAA. That is one of the best teams in the land right now and they're deemed not one of the best 68? Nah ahh, fuck that.

The Greatest Shot I Have Ever Seen

 

He is such an asshole but I have to give it to him, that is the greatest shot I ever saw.

That's what makes me feel so bad, it affects the whole state.

The Cornhuskers have been off the national radar in football since their 1990s heyday, which has taken a toll on the psyche of a state...

Duncan Robinson reached 1,000 made three-point shots faster than any player in NBA history (topping current player Buddy Hield) yesterday against the Zollner Pistons.

On Cuckoldry III

-Chapter-

Strict meaning gets blurred in art and history as it does in life. In Victorian times, in England and on the continent, it was not unheard of for a wife, especially a younger "trophy" wife to have secret liaisons with friends of her husband who she met in the marital home, and with the servants. It was aristocratic privilege. 

In Eyes Wide Shut a debonair man hits on...I forget her name, some famous, gorgeous actress, saying,

“You know why women used to get married. It was the only way they could lose their virginity and be free to do what they wanted with other men. The ones they really wanted.”

That's like the only thing I remember from that movie. But that's aristocratic privilege. It was an invitation to cuckoldry but the woman declined.

In somewhat earlier times Winston Churchill's wife had a "fling" on a trip abroad. Also privileged behavior of the elite class. Was Churchill a cuckold or a wittol? Since his wife admitted it (I don't know if at the time), he was accepting of it as s.o.p. Aristocratic privilege.

There is a much older painting, I forget who the artist was, or the title, that depicts the ambiguity between cuckold and wittol.


                                                          Detail. Enhanced.

She is handing her older “eyes wide shut” husband, I presume, his eyeglasses so that he can observe her nude with a dashing young lover. She is taunting him. His body language gives it away. It's not the modern practice of "watching the wife" have sex with another man. The old man is a grudgingly accepting wittol, the same as may be in the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode.

This theme, and to be precise, the theme here is the husband who has no choice but to accept and who is taunted by his wife, is also present in The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. Margot Macomber has had lots of affairs, is on a safari with her husband Francis, and has an affair with their white hunter guide. "You promised there'd be none of that if we went on this trip," Francis whines. "Well, there is now", Margot breezily and cruelly answers. "You think I'll put up with anything.", Francis rejoins with heat. "I know that you will, sweets."

One of Hemingway's closest associates, maybe an editor, said that Margot was meant to symbolize the "bitch American wife" and the story was metaphorically about "Man free of women." (?) How could that be? The story ends with Francis' death; Margot killed him, it is ambiguous whether accidentally or deliberately. I had always interpreted the story as Hemingway asserting the ultimate triumph of woman over man.


"Clytemnestra after the Murder" (1882)

                                                          Another artist's depiction.

 

                                                       Detail from Collier.


A bitch Margot Macomber was, a cuckolding bitch,  a wife she was, and an American she was. Was Margot Macomber a type?

In The Pioneers, for the record, the first American novel written by an American about American life, James Fenimore Cooper has the heroine, nee Elizabeth Temple, say to her husband,

"You know, Effingham, that my father has told you that I ruled him and that I should rule you. I am now about to exert my power."

Power. Power and Liberty were the themes, the obsession of the American Revolution. John Adams wrote, "In Europe power grants charters of liberty; in America liberty grants charters of power." The sexual imagery in the pamphlets of the American Revolution is impossible to miss and was acknowledged by Bernard Bailyn, the preeminent authority on that literature. Liberty was "hunted", "violated", "pure". Power was a man to the Founding Fathers; Liberty was a woman. They would reverse the relationship and put the woman on top. 

Liberty. Chaucer, a man, wrote The Canterbury Tales for a nobleman patron. Alison, the narrator of The Tale of the Wife of Bath ("Tale" is pun on "Tail" I am convinced) has become an instantiation of female power and liberty. Alison states to her husband, who she has cuckolded and who complains,

Have thou ynogh, what thar thee recche or care
How myrily that othere folkes fare?
For certeyn, olde dotard, by youre leve,
Ye shul have queynte right ynogh at eve.
He is to greet a nygard, that wolde werne
340 A man to lighte his candle at his lanterne;
He shal have never the lasse light, pardee,
Have thou ynogh, thee thar nat pleyne thee.

You get all the cunt you want. What do you care if I get pleasure and give pleasure to other men? Don't be a niggard with cunt.
...  

What eyleth yow to grucche thus and grone?
450 Is it for ye wolde have my queynte allone?
Wy, taak it al! lo, have it every deel!
Peter! I shrewe yow, but ye love it weel;
For if I wolde selle my bele chose,
I koude walke as fressh as is a rose

You want my cunt all to yourself? Well, take it! But satisfy it, Peter, or I'll sell it to someone who will. Alison was married five times.

The root of libertinism, "disregard of authority or convention in sexual or religious matters" is liberty.

It is important to note that not all cuckolding wives in the arts are portrayed as "Bitch wives". Alison is a charming, funny, heroine, "rare as a unicorn" (see immediately below). Even in the paintings, where the husband is the "victim" the treatment of the wife is often humorous, not condemning.

We Americans are sons and daughters of Mother England. We killed our mother. Five hundred and eighty years, a change in gender of authors and a change in religious influence from Protestantism to Judaism, and here came Erica Jong:

"I was not against marriage. I believed in it in fact. ...But what about all those other longings which after a while marriage did nothing much to appease? The restlessness, the hunger, the thump in the gut, the thump in the cunt..."

...
"Even if you loved your husband, there came that inevitable year when fucking him turned as bland as Velveeta cheese: filling, fattening even, but no thrill to the tastebuds, no bittersweet edge, no danger."

"...my fantasy of the Zipless Fuck. The zipless fuck was more than a fuck. It was a platonic ideal. Zipless because when you came together zippers fell away like rose petals, underwear blew off in one breath like dandelion fluff. Tongues intertwined...The zipless fuck is absolutely pure. It is free of ulterior motives. There is no power game. The man is not ‘taking’ and the woman is not ‘giving.’ No one is attempting to cuckold a husband or humiliate a wife. No one is trying to prove anything or get anything out of anyone. The zipless fuck is the purest thing there is. And it is rarer than the unicorn. And I have never had one."

Ho-ho-ho. That is a fantasy! “Oh excuse me ma'am, I just ran into your cunt with my dick.” It’s also a "power game." Jong's "fantasy" is one where women are not accountable and not responsible for anything; where they have no power, not the willpower to exercise physical power, where sex “just happens”, there's no agency, it's nobody's fault, "I didn't intend to cuckold!", there's no shame or guilt, I didn't even get undressed! my underwear just "blew off". "I got drunk and it...I don't know what...just happened." No giving, no taking: What does Jong mean by that? That there was no rape. There’s no consent either. “It just happened.” That’s a juvenile fantasy. Jong has been married four times.

Danger. It is a turn-on. The fear of getting caught. It is essential to the psychology of cuckolding. The woman has to get away with it but...the closer to danger she comes, the greater the thrill, the more intense the orgasm with the other. My ex-girlfriend Mindy once told me that at a boozy party that she attended with her husband some guy grabbed her ass. A short-time later she grabbed another guy's ass. She was with her husband at this party.
 
A childhood friend of my (second ex) wife did some modeling (fashion not nude) when she was younger, still married. That led to an affair with the photog. The affair was of some duration when Beth invited the photog to her house with her husband present. Giving the photog a tour of the house Beth took him upstairs and began groping him and spreading on the marital bed.

In Breaking Bad, the husband and wife have sex in the car outside a school. "Why was that so good?," the wife asks after. "Because it's illegal," the husband answers. Yes, danger is a turn-on. For the cuckolding wife, it's not as thrilling if the husband goes along with it, as Churchill apparently did. If the husband doesn't care, he devalues the wife, she's not worth it, she's not worth killing or beating or divorcing. Or even revenge cheating on. "You're not worth it." Talk about deflating! Definitely not what the wife expected--or wanted--no psychological out-witting. "I don't even get any jealousy? Not even a leetle?" "No, you're not desirable enough." OWIE! Couldn't have an O with her boy toy after that one. (p.s. Nancy Pelosi said she didn't want to go ahead with Trumpie's first impeachment, "He's not worth it." It hurt Trumpie's feelings.)

Hemingway's friend said that Margot Macomber had no respect for Francis, that what she wanted was for him to be man enough to stop her cuckolding. How, by beating her? Killing her? I don't know about that but that's what the man said. The idea would be, if that was Hemingway's intent, that the cuckolding wife doesn't want to cuckold her husband again, but that she was powerless to stop herself. Again, I don't know about that but that is not true cuckolding. I do however find experiential support in the notion from Mindy.

Not only did Mindy successfully cuckold (i.e. secretly) her husband but she also withheld sex from him. She told me that when they would get into bed together she would say, "There's an imaginary line down the center of the bed. Do not cross it!" I know that that story is true because she said the same thing to me!
 
Did she want her husband, or me, or both, to "be man enough" to force her, to rape her? Which is exactly the question Louis CK asks himself when a woman he did not consummate, “I was hoping you’d just take it." 

I didn't ask myself Louis CK's question of Mindy at the time, I just took it. But in the few years after I broke up with her I did. I did not force her, I have never forced a woman, I would never force a woman, I broke up with Mindy--but months or a year later, not then--with the line, "This is the happiest day in my life, when you're out of it completely." But at the time, I took it. Did Mindy lose respect for me or Mark for taking it and not “just taking it”? I have never understood rape. I could not get an erection if a woman didn’t want to have sex with me. In after-thought I played it out, "Oh that's good, Mindy! The same thing you said to Mark! Now, I could rape you but...you're not worth it." I didn't say that, I have never said that, and I never would say that; I never have had the thought of using the word rape even as a dismissed possibility. 

I read Mindy at the time as not remembering that she had told me that she had used that line on Mark--and Mark never forced her either—and, playing it out still further, I thought years after that if either Mark or I had forced her that she would have Bobbitted us in our sleep, or Macombered us. 

But I did wonder in after-thought what her reaction to being forced would have been. What if Mark had forced her and she had enjoyed it, "Oh yes, beat me, whip me, I've been a bad girl." Since Mark never forced  her, Mark had never forced a woman, and would never force a woman, or even insultingly joke about it, it's one step beyond reality to say what Mark would have done if she had responded with ecstasies to being forced. Would she have wanted him to incorporate it into their sex lives? It is literally inconceivable to me personally.But. there. is. something. to. it. Did you know that some young people role-play "the rape game"? Do you know what FMLYHM stands for? 
 
(more)

On Cuckoldry II

-Chapter-

Proximately, what got me going on this was an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm that I watched last week, the "Dry Cleaner", about a Latin bombshell wife of an Orthodox Jewish man who has sex with other men and who treats her husband like shit in the store. It appears that the husband is unknowing but it may be willful ignorance, in which case he would be a wittol in the strict meaning. 

I have personal knowledge of a few like instances of cuckoldry. A red-headed (I mention the color of her hair because of the stereotype of red-headed women for being wild) young woman, the daughter of a cop (I mention that because of the stereotype of cops for being cruel and because the mean red apple may not fall far from the tree) was married, the marriage was of recent vintage, to an Indian (subcontinent) young man. The newlyweds together attended an office party where the new bride performed fellatio on another gentleman as he was sitting on the toilet evacuating his large intestine. Both operations successfully completed the red-head wife told her Indian husband with cop-like firmness to "GO HOME!", that she would follow when she was finished cuckolding him.

In the same vein, a 20-something new bride who had lobbied long and persistently for the status with her much older beau applied to become a cop, was accepted into that testosterone fraternity, and within six months of the blessed event attended mandatory training in "how to become a cop" at a venue outside her marital domicile state. Upon return a week or so later she informed her new husband that she had gotten "fingered" at the cop-training academy. "I don't want to hear it!" the husband replied.

Pause: She did not cuckold her husband when she got “fingered” because she told him. Did she cheat on her husband when she got “fingered”?  Yes, I and I think most people would say getting your vagina digitally penetrated by a finger not on one of your husband’s hands is cheating. Did her husband “assume the risk” of being cuckolded when he said, “I don’t want to hear it!” Unpause.

Over the next couple of years the new gumshoe's husband talked to all of his friends, one got the impression he stopped strangers on the street and asked them what they thought of his wife's odd and unsettling behavior, viz: obtaining two "boob jobs", paying halvsies out of marital "common property" funds for the alterations which he never requested; turning red in the face when a mutual female friend unknowingly ribbed her about scrapes on both knees, & etc., so much & etc. that I cannot remember now all the viz. 

The husband told all of it to me in twice or thrice weekly lunches and I became convinced that he was being cuckolded. I consulted with my (second, ex) wife on what if any fiduciary obligation I owed my friend, for such he was, my closest, and the consensus was not to give voice to my deep suspicions unless I was directly asked.

That happened one day in his vehicle on the way to our Chinese restaurant. "I think Claire's cheating on me." I reached over with my left hand and patted him comfortingly on the leg and said softly, "I do too." He immediately wheeled his head around toward me and asked "Do you have any information?" Of course, I did not and replied "No," it was just based on what he had told me in many, many conversations over many, many months.

Some shortish time after that time in the car he told me that Claire, in a fit of anger, asked him accusingly, "Are you cheating on me?!" "No, but you are," he answered, and Claire's head dropped guiltily.

She had cuckolded him. He told me after he was master of the case and the marriage had ended, "She cuckolded me". In fact she fucked every swinging dick at the cop office, once in the backseat of her car with their child's car seat as an obstacle, during lunch with a new cop recruit, likely while I was having lunch with her husband. "There's a child's car seat!" the man exclaimed with some horror. "I don't care," Claire responded and got fucked right next to her child's seat.

After each conquest Claire went into her boss's office and laughingly told him all the juicy details. 

There are several things common to cuckoldry in Claire's cuckoldry:

  • Power (more on that below). Cops have it, Clarie got it. 
  • Liberty (ditto). Power confers a sense of entitlement; the more power you have the less you believe and perceive the rules apply to you. 
  • Danger and getting away with it (as in Breaking Bad, also below). 
  • The fun in telling others while keeping the husband in the dark. Successful cuckolding is not a solitary accomplishment. The cuckolding wife needs to get recognition, like a Certificate of Merit in cuckolding. 
  • The reverse accusation. Claire accused her husband of infidelity, of which he was completely innocent. It was a slip that revealed the true case. 
  • Signs. The knee abrasions, the two boob jobs. The cuckolding wife likes to get as close to the red line of discovery as possible.

A woman who I dated for four years was separated and living apart from her husband, but still technically married, when she pursued a relationship with me. (en passant, I was so wary and a bit unnerved by her advance that I consulted with my friend above who gave me the sage advice, "Don't do it." I did anyway.) I came to find out from her own loose lips that she had successfully cuckolded her husband with two, three including me, other men over a period of years. She treated her husband like shit as the Latin bombshell on Curb Your Enthusiasm did.

As did Claire, the woman I dated, Mindy, made the reverse accusation in a phone call she told me about with her husband. They were arguing about something and Mindy outed with, "You two-timing son of a bitch!" "Two-timing?", her husband responded. Mindy said she immediately realized she had slipped.

(more)

Sunday, March 17, 2024


Hmm. Not this one, not even without Jimmy and the rest, not the regular season these two years.


Yeah, but too many soul-crushing regular season L’s. 

FT Zollner 101 “Heat” 104

Bam with the 30’ trey at the buzzer for the W.

Jimmy and Niko were ruled out today with injury, joining Tyler and Lovey-Dovey Turtle-Dovey. Spo started D-Ro, who was game-high with 30 pts, Haywood Highway, Bam (20 and 16 along with tje game-winner), T-Ro, and 3J.



On Cuckoldry*

*As I foresaw in the introduction immediately following, this post has become long, far too long for one post. I have therefore broken it up and post this first part now with the body to follow.

(March 16, 9:35 a.m.) I have an amateur's theory about this. As this post is liable to be long I will state my thesis in an abstract and then fill it in.

-Abstract-

Cuckoldry is an act of power. In its original meaning cuckoldry is an act performed secretly in a marriage by the wife on an unknowing husband. The husband is the target of cuckoldry; the wife wants to make him "wear the horns", unknowingly. The object of the wife's game, for it is that, a game, is not exclusively or primarily the wife's sexual pleasure with the lover. The object is joint but primarily the psychological pleasure of the wife in duping the husband which enhances sexual pleasure with the lover. The wife's sexual pleasure in cuckolding is essential, for without it the practice becomes something else, e.g. hate sex or revenge sex, or to leave the husband to get another. But my thesis is that the cuckolding wife probably would not even date the lover were she unmarried. My thesis is that the cuckolding wife does not wish another husband; she is content with the one she has--as long as he is in the state of being a cuckold.

-Sources-

My sources are an amateur's and the accidental, including the anecdotal and the experiential. I consulted no scholarly writing and did not search pop cultural references, I just happened on them in reading and watching. In literature: The Pioneers, The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber, The Tale of the Wife of Bath in the Canterbury Tales, The Garden of Eden, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, Fear of Flying; things that I could watch on my computer without having to pay for: the movie Eyes Wide Shut, Breaking Bad, episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Louis CK; and paintings. That is an eclectic menu of food for thought whose connections appear obscure, I acknowledge. But there are connections.

-Terminology-

It is important that I specify what I mean when I use certain terms, that I use them precisely, and that I distinguish them from others closely related.

Adultress: a woman who gets caught committing adultery. It is crucial to the cuckolding wife's psychological power game that she not get caught.

Cuckoldry: As I use the term, and in its uniform historical meaning, it is the wife's act of having sex with a man not her husband, unbeknownst to the husband.

Cuckold: A man, the "victim" of cuckoldry. The term comes from the cuckoo bird and that bird's practice of laying its eggs in another's nest. The male bird raises the hatchling unknowing that it is not his.

"Wearing the horns": The sign for a man who has been cuckolded. And the sign for a woman who has cuckolded him.

This is of ancient usage.
 


The derivation here is not a bird but a stag, for its practice of defeating another stag in combat for mating rights. I accept the sign as common usage while rejecting the meaning of cuckoldry as a male thing, much less one that is the result of combat.

There is far too much stag imagery in paintings for it not to be symbolic. Two nude women, each wearing crowns, one riding a stag:


There are some seldom-used terms.

-Cockoldress: Per Wikipedia, "a woman who cuckolds her husband."

-Cuckquean:  Per same, "the wife of an adulterous husband." But see,

     -quean: "a disreputable woman".

Have you ever heard of "cuckquean"? Me neither. Never heard the wife of an adulterous husband called a cuckquean. I don't use or recognize the term.

-Wittol: Obscure, very rarely used, but to me, an important term: a knowing cuckold. Interestingly, it is taken from the bird of the same name, as cuckold derived from a bird.

-Candaulism: An obscure term but a common practice in the age of the camera and the iPhone. Historically, the practice of a husband showing his wife naked to another man without his wife's knowledge or consent.


And then there is the modern meaning and fetish of cuckoldry which mashes all of these different concepts together. Cuckolding today includes wife-sharing, voyeurism, exhibitionism, "swinging", any extramarital sexual behavior with or without the husband's knowledge. I reject all of those as cuckoldry, which I define as the first term above.

(more)

“Paper Cuts”, Jan. 17


You ever have a paper cut like that? Multiple paper cuts: one in the middle of your thumb, two on your index finger, one on your palm? Me neither.

Perhaps I was too hasty…

…in calling off Eleven’s spaying appointment this coming Tuesday.

I was not as attentive to her as I should have been (for both our sakes) yesterday (writing) and near the end of the day, as I was STILL at my computer, she hopped up onto my desk and signaled that she wanted to give me loves bites on my hands. A common game we play. This time however, for the first time, she bit me hard, drawing blood. “God, Eleven,” I said to her out loud. Now I see, as you can, that I might have gotten an infection. I don’t think so but those are pretty diffuse red splotches around the bite marks.

“You wouldn’t even allow him in your house, much less then the White House. ...There’s something wrong here. How respectful I am of the American people and their goodness, but how much more do they have to see from him...?"--Nancy Pelosi on the Sunday talk shows.

Trumpie said he would never appear with President Biden in debates sponsored by the non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates, because the Commission was unfair to him, threatening to cut off his microphone if he didn't stop talking and let the president speak. And of course he didn't participate in any debates sponsored by the RNC in the primaries. Recently however, realizing he's going to lose to Biden, he said he would debate "ANYWHERE, ANYPLACE, ANYTIME". When asked if he would debate Trumpie, the president replied, "It depends on his behavior." 

So, when I couldn't get to sleep last night for several hours, and when that happens I try to focus my mind on pleasant thoughts like Pitt or the "Heat". Not having those happy examples for my use, I tried another, President Biden announcing why he would not debate Trumpie:

"No, I won't. He's mentally defective, emotionally unstable, ceaselessly rhetorically violent, won't take the Oath of Office to protect the Constitution--he's unfit for office. He belongs in a close-fitting white coat, not in the White House."

THE GREAT TELEMPROMPTER CONSPIRACY!

Joe Biden tore into Donald Trump’s mental stability [on what basis?] at a dinner in Washington DC on Saturday – just as the former president was making verbal gaffes at a campaign rally in Ohio...

...

 Freewheeling during a speech in which his teleprompters were seemingly disabled by high winds, Trump – a frequent critic of the 81-year-old Biden’s age and mental acuity – struggled to pronounce the words “bite” and “largest”. And he left the crowd scratching their heads over the reference to Obama...

...

Biden joked about Trump’s mental fitness at Saturday night’s Gridiron club dinner, a traditional “roast” attended by politicians and journalists dating to the 1880s.

“One candidate is too old and mentally unfit to be president. The other one is me,” the president said.

“Don’t tell him. He thinks he’s running against Barack Obama, that’s what he said,” Biden added, referring to several previous occasions when the 77-year-old Trump has confused the incumbent and presumptive 2024 opponent with his Democratic predecessor.

...

[Trumpie] also attempted to blame the installation of the troublesome teleprompters on Biden, and he urged the event organizers not to pay the contractors.

...repeating unsubstantiated claims that foreign countries were “emptying” their prisons and mental institutions into the US, Trump took a familiar swipe at immigrants, calling some of them “animals”.

“I don’t know if you call them people. They’re not people, in my opinion. But I’m not allowed to say that because the radical left says that’s a terrible thing to say.”

Oh-My-Oh

Trumpie's Ich Bin Ein Retard speech will be taught in advanced seminars on statesmanship in secure institutions as long as there are such institutions and such classes are offered.

In the same rational, coherent address in which he said "bloodbath", no mo' elections, and migrants ain't people, Trumpie also said yesterday,

“You know what’s interesting? Joe Biden won against Barack Hussein Obama. Has anyone ever heard of him? Every swing state, Biden beat Obama but in every other state, he got killed.”

I will explain my virtual absence yesterday. I was working on a post. I worked on it from the time I got up until 11:30 p.m. I'm not done. That's the explanation. Also the NCAA can suck my dick and so can the "Heat".

Trump Says Some Migrants Are ‘Not People’ and Predicts a ‘Blood Bath’ if He Loses--NYT

No, all of them are people, Trumpie, you are going to lose, not "if", and bring your blood bath. B.Y.O.Embalming fluid, too.

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Trumpie: "Now if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. If this election isn’t won, I’m not sure that you’ll ever have another election in this country."

"Now if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s gonna be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That will be the least of it."

"If this election isn’t won, I’m not sure that you’ll ever have another election in this country."

Ho-ho-ho. Trumpie, you're not going to win this election, there will be other elections in this country, and bring the bloodbath.

RUSSIANS, From Ukraine😳



Friday, March 15, 2024

So I don’t have to eat your shit

Monty Williams called a FTO with 1:08 left. W.T.F.

Z 93 "Heat" 108, 1:33 4Q

FT no.4 UNC 72 Pitt 65

Z 65 “Heat” 80 (24-11 3Q), 2:56, Z FTO

Pitt 51 no.4 🍎 🥶 58, 8:03 2H

HT Z 54 “Heat” 56

🖕 


Yep, we’re going to need this—a win over the no. 4 team in the country!—to get in. We’ve won 22 games in a major, major conference already. Nope, Pitt, you gotta beat no. 4 to be one of the SIXTY-EIGHT invites to the Big Dance. I don’t understand. Both my teams are on the post-season “bubble”. The “Heat” and the “Panthers”.

Look at this. Still 4’ left in the 1H and Jovic is behind all other starters and two subs in minutes.


One question, coach, just one: Why do you start him and NEVER give him starters minutes?

HT Powerful “Panthers” 35 Apple Chills 33

If we win this game I’ll eat your shit.

Z 40 Greater Miami 41, 6:33 2Q

Pitt 28-28 UNC 3:12 1H

It’s Friday Night…


 



🤔 

Pickett's Charges

It's not even clear Pickett faces any charges! The confusion in this saga is something that you'd read of the Carolina "Panthers", not, NEVER, the Pittsburgh "Steelers". To use the buzzword du jour there is maximal misalignment in the "Steelers" internal communication and in their external messaging. "Not on the same page", in the age of paper.

A DIFFERENT CBS reporter, responding to ESPN's report, says Tomlin told Pickett Wilson would be starter in 2024

Aditi Kinkhabwala
@AKinkhabwala
NOTE: “preferred” is not bc Kenny Pickett is running away from competition. He was explicitly told by the #Steelers Wilson would start, reneging on the pledge he’d been given that after two years of chaos, he’d finally be put in position to succeed - per sources apprised of convo

There's some dysfunction in the reporting of this story of dysfunction!

ESPN: After Wilson signing Pickett "preferred" to move on.

Adam Schefter
@AdamSchefter
Trade: Steelers are sending QB Kenny Pickett to the Philadelphia Eagles in a pick swap, sources tell ESPN.

Once Pittsburgh signed Russell Wilson, Pickett preferred to move on.

 

Steelers trading Kenny Pickett reveals team's inner dysfunction; Pittsburgh now goes all-in on Russell Wilson

Oh, that'll do it!

Gerry Dulac
@gerrydulac
The Steelers made the move because of the way Pickett was poorly handling [sic] the arrival of Russell Wilson, according to sources. That came on the heels of Pickett's behavior last season when he refused to dress as the emergency third quarterback in Seattle in Week 17.

 3:02 PM · Mar 15, 2024
·
1.5M Views

Dulac covers the "Steelers" for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

“STEELERS” TRADE PICKETT

They signed Russell Wilson which was the first shoe to drop and then shipped Kenny and a 2024 fourth round pick to Philly for a 2024 third-round pick and two 2025 seventh-round picks. Kenny was the “Steelers” 2022 FIRST round pick, selected 20th.

I did not see this coming. Manifestly, the “Steelers” org deeply soured on the product of my beloved Pitt “Panthers.”. To trade a first rounder after two seasons and having to sweeten the pot with a fourth round pick this year for a THIRD this year and two SEVENTHS next year is acknowledgment that selecting Pickett in the first round was a HUGE mistake. They practically had to pay Philadelphia to take Pickett off their hands.

My little girl is back. I called today and postponed her spaying, scheduled for Tuesday. The shots and nail clipping that they gave her on Feb. 5 have, intentionally or not, eliminated, so far, her heat behavior. She hasn’t been in heat since. I don’t want to hurt her, don’t want to change her so fundamentally, unless it is absolutely necessary, and I have decided that right now it is not necessary, it would be gratuitous. The vets office of course tried, but gently, to talk me out of it but were understanding snd said I had a year (under her pre-paid treatment plan).



Champs League

City and Real Madrid were drawn out of the hat to face one another in the most glamorous matchup of the quarterfinals.

Paris-Barca, Bayern-Arsenal, Atlético Madrid-Borussia Dortmund complete the eight-team field. City are the favorites to win it all again but what an intriguing Final an all-Madrid would be, eh?

My goodness: Jalen Brunson, Manny Hatty

Brunson is an absolute stud and last night he had 45 in battling Cronin's Disease, successfully for his team, which double-digited the win in Portlandia. Julius Randle, you can have him, but in Brunson and OG Wankenobi, Manny Hatty has the guys to peak at just the right time. The team is solidifying its grip on the four seed (and home court) in the East. Clap out to the "Knickerbockers".

Good morning beautiful chickens

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Final Call

FT Doc's Crew 114 Doc's Former Crew 105

Rockettes 135 Army of Northern Virginia 119

Male Cows 111 La-La Beard-Beard 126

Boston City 127 Fee Phi PHO 112

Spoelstra was depressed in his post-Denver presser. I have been depressed since the worst loss of the season. We have two games at Zollner next up, one Friday, one Sunday. Easy dubs. Ho-ho-ho. Ask Greater Miami about easy dubs after Army NoVa. And...Zollner has won three of their last four. I don't know where this team's, Miami's, head is. They're capable of winning both of course; they're also capable of losing any game they play. I will need medication if they lose both to Zollner, but one win or even a sweep won't lighten appreciably my dark mood. I can't believe this is the same ol' same ol' regular season "Heat" that is going to revert to their regular season norm. I'm just stunned. "Heat" fetishists will mock me for this pessimism. As my pencil correspondent wrote, "Correct. But two Finals appearances." There's always that with Greater Miami no matter how close the guillotine comes to falling. By my lights another deep run in the playoffs is virtually inconceivable. To Culture fetishists, I ask you to consider the inconceivable to you, that the "Heat" don't make the playoffs, or if so, that they get bounced by Boston City or Doc's Brew in the first round. Will your sunny optimism be banished for good?

Cannot believe this shit


Shake a my head

HT Doc's Crew 53 Doc's Former Crew 61. Yikes.

The New York Times, The Daily: The 1990/91 "Microgeneration"

The Daily is the Times' radio show. I had the pleasure of listening to parts of today's show when I was out earlier. It was so fascinating that I sat in my car for several seconds at the supermarket just to listen to more of it. Here is the money shot:

Jeanna Smialek

I’m part of this really important cohort of people born in 1990 and 1991 who are turning 33 or 34 this year, and we actually represent the biggest part of the biggest generation in the United States.

Michael Barbaro

Just say that one more time. I mean, that feels like a genuinely new piece of information. I just want you to repeat so I can absorb it.

Jeanna Smialek

Yes. So we are the biggest part of the biggest living generation in America. The people who were born in 1990 and 1991 are the two biggest population years in the country. 

This is the full transcript. The Daily. Microgeneration

Pitt is NOT It. Pitt has moved up from "Next Four Out" to "First Four Out". If we have to beat UNC, fuhgeddaboudit.

FT PITT 81 Woke Forest 69!

The Fat Lady Has Sung. Pitt 77 Woke 67, :56

 


Pitt 75 Woke 67, 1:21 2H, Woke TO (Woke's last TO). It's not over!

We are in the midst of a stupendous collapse. Pitt 69 Woke Forest 65, 2:36 left.

Pitt 53 Woke Forest 36, 13:42 2H. Barring a Stupendous Collapse Pitt Is It

Why did Trev Alberts leave?

This article, from The Athletic, Feb. 2, 2024 puts some flesh on the skeletal remarks of Omaha World Herald NU football beat writer Sam McKewon. To summarize, I excerpt below, it's all about that corporate buzzword, "alignment", and the University of Nebraska System is misaligned. 

  • The positions of chancellor and president were recently combined. Heretofore a chancellor oversaw a campus, Nebraska has at least two, Nebraska-Lincoln and Nebraska-Omaha. A chancellor for each. The president oversaw both campuses and the entire university System. Ted Carter had been System president until leaving in August, 2023 to become president of Ohio. The position of Nebraska System president has not been filled. Chris Kabourek is the interim prez.
  • The academic and athletic components of the Nebraska-Lincoln campus are misaligned. Cuts are required in the budget of the former while the budget of the latter, under Trev Alberts' rainmaking, ran a surplus last year. Alberts had been the main proponent of a nearly half-billion dollar renovation of the "Cornhuskers" home field, Memorial Stadium. You can see the misalignment. That expensive stadium project has stalled.
  • The position of football coach is now misaligned with the the new university academic and athletic leadership. Matt Rhule was hired by Carter, the last full-time president, and Alberts, the last full-time Athletic Director. You would forgive Matt if he feels a little "vulnerable", a word that the interim president, Kabourek, used to apply to himself. Because,
  • The Nebraska "Cornhuskers" are misaligned in the B1G Conference. An important reason for the misalignment is Nebraska's lonesomeness as the only school of 18 not a member of the prestigious American Association of Universities (AAU). Nebraska was kicked out of the AAU in 2011.
  • The most important reason the AAU booted Nebraska was the university System's misaligned research funding reporting, which separated that at Nebraska-Lincoln from its medical school in Omaha. Kabourek is aligning these into one report, which probably will help with the AAU.

The unanimous reporting on Trev Alberts' decision to leave Nebraska for Texas DE&I is that it had nothing to do with money; it had to do with this uncertainty.

In the academic and research world, Kabourek faces a budget shortfall and the reality of administering cuts.

Nebraska athletics, under the direction of Alberts, generated $204.8 million in revenue in the 2023 fiscal year, a record for the state’s flagship institution, and a $13.9 million surplus. Both financial figures place Nebraska into an elite category nationally.

And still, Kabourek is concerned.

...

This week [Feb. 2, 2024], the university system announced that University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha plan this year to report federally funded research expenditures as a combined figure to the National Science Foundation’s Higher Education Research and Development Survey.

It matters because Nebraska had been the only Big Ten institution to separate research dollars tied to its main campus and the medical school. The distinction contributed to the 2011 removal of Nebraska from the prestigious American Association of Universities, of which it had been a member since 1909.

Every other Big Ten member, including the four schools set to join from the Pac-12 in August, belongs to the AAU.

The reclassification of research expenditures gets Nebraska “in the ballpark,” Kabourek said, with other Big Ten universities. But the process to regain AAU membership requires a “broader strategy to align” the Lincoln campus with the rest of the university system, Kabourek said.

The decision last year to shift oversight of Nebraska athletics from the UNL chancellor to the system president illustrates an additional effort to align campuses.


Kabourek participated this week in his first gathering of the Big Ten Council of Presidents and Chancellors.

“It’s a little vulnerable to walk into that meeting and know that you’re representing the only school that doesn’t look like the other 17,” he said. “Those are our peers, and we’ve got to make sure we’re competing with those peers.”

University leaders must do more, according to Kabourek, or they could risk Nebraska’s solid footing in the Big Ten. Ultimately, they could jeopardize the school’s membership.

...

 No scenario is entirely farfetched. ...

 Could the Big Ten expel Nebraska over its missing AAU label? Yes, if the other league members were looking for a reason to share multimedia rights revenue with fewer schools.

Kabourek surely won’t encounter such a plot in 2024. But Alberts could face anything imaginable before his time in Lincoln is done. ...

Now he won't have to.

..."With Trev, we have the right leader at the right time."...

Now you don't. 

If these are the reasons, and they seem to be, Alberts gestured toward them in his remarks upon introduction at DE&I, then it's hard for me not to feel that Alberts did a shitty thing here, that he doesn't really love Nebraskans, the university, the football program's supporters, or the state. I don't blame university leadership. To leave because leadership is unsettled at the present time is shitty. University presidents, chancellors, whatever the term for university leadership, change all the time. Why did Alberts sign that contract extension in November, 2023? If Nebraska had named a permanent replacement for president in October, do you mean to tell me he would have stayed? I don't believe that. If he had left for more money than Nebraska could afford, to me, that would be more understandable. DE&I has been throwing money at sports people for ever; they made Jackie Sherrill an offer he couldn't refuse to get him to jump from Pitt. Mercenary is a better word than others in very few contexts, but here, to me, it would be better for Alberts to have been a mercenary than...what? What is the label you put on what he did? Stability wanter? President fetishist? Disloyal, that's the only word I can think that applies to Alberts. He professed his LOVE for Nebraska and all things Nebraska. If he hadn't done that, it's like renewing your vows to your spouse three years after getting married and then ditching them eight months later. It's a shitty thing to do to a nice person who you say you love and he did it to Nebraska Nice.

Trev Alberts Leaves Nebraska for Texas DE&I

Shocking move that buries Big Red deeper in uncertainty. Alberts had been Athletic Director at Nebraska only since 2021 and just four months ago signed an extension to stay until 2031. Nebraska has had five Athletic Directors since 2011. He will get a significant raise at DE&I but he hinted that more than money was behind ditching his alma mater:

"From my perspective, there has never been a more consequential time in history for higher education and the evolving landscape of intercollegiate athletics. Leadership matters now more than ever before. My interest in Texas A&M is not only due to its prestigious reputation but also because of President (Mark) Welsh's compelling vision in which, I believe, Athletics can play a small but important role in helping Texas A&M achieve unprecedented success."

The move and the reason for it are deeply distressing for the entire state, and infuriating to at least one important figure:





Last night was the eighth straight with the Rozier-Robinson-Butler-Jovic-Adebayo starting lineup. It is the most-used starting group all season. It was not employed until this eight-game stretch. Spoelstra has settled on it, at least until Herro gets back. The "Heat" are 3-5 with that lineup, at this portentous time. "This five-man combination was outscored by 6.6 points per 100 possessions in 89 minutes together during the first seven games of this stretch. ...[and] closed Wednesday’s loss with a negative plus/minus of minus three in 13 minutes together." 

Somebody can make a liar out of me but I do not recall Spoelstra ever playing a starter so few minutes, so consistently, as he does Jovic. Last night was typical, 16', seventh-high. Still, he was +1! Tied with Patty Mills (14', 2 pts) for team best.

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/nba/miami-heat/article286533780.html#storylink=cpy


Nuggets star center Nikola Jokic did not have a huge game, finishing with just 12 points on eight field-goal attempts to go with 14 rebounds, six assists and four turnovers. 

But others around Jokic stepped up.
 

https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/nba/miami-heat/article286533780.html#storylink=cpy

Yes. That would also go along with the "hand" meaning of Spoelstra's "handle" comment. They're like mercury, you have your thumb pretty much on the big fat blob and then Aaron Gordon or Michael Porter, Jr. squirts out.

I truly enjoy Spoelstra's comments. Like those he made after the Army NoVa debacle they are deeply insightful. He really understands. But. There is the air of the ivory tower in them, a too intellectual detachment from the reality on the common below. We have lost four in a row. We are headed for 44 wins and the play-in. There are 17 games left to analyze, we are 0-11 against top five teams, and the reason for our predicament is not lack of deep understanding but talent.

“Denver's a complex team"-Spoelstra

“They’re a complex team. We still only held them to 100. You feel like you have a handle on them and then all of a sudden, they can just separate in those skirmishes. ..."

https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/nba/miami-heat/article286533780.html#storylink=cpy

Spoelstra's a very smart guy. Those are four smart things he said there in under two sentences. I noticed in the previous game, they just blew it open. They did after the "Heat's" hot start in the first last night and of course in the fourth. Riley's word "skirmishes". It was breath-taking. It's true, we held the defending champions to an even 100 points. That's an eye-opener in the morning. You think you have them figured out...I thought the same in the same words when we won Game Two of the Finals out there. I thought we would win the series. Last night the image was of a hand on the throat keeping us at arm's length. It may have been the control meaning that Spoelstra intends there, we've got them contained with our schemes, etc. No comment on talent, though. 99% of coachspeak when you lose is "He's just a great player", as if there's no earthly power that could contain him, whether it's Nikola Jovic or a random scrub. "Nothing we could do". For Spoelstra, there's always something he can do, some key he can turn to unlock the complex mystery.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Those aren’t the best five in the league this season but the “Heat” is now 0-11 against the best five.






Earlier in the week I emailed a “Heat” beat writer:

“A few years ago I began noting and updating to current the Heat's won/lost record from the beginning of the 2014/15 season to present. In those nine full seasons the Heat has won a decimal average percentage .543 of its games. Over an 82-game season a record of 45-37. So far this year we are .547, which projects to 45 wins. I find that telling.

“An average is a good metric, I like it, it's easy, but like any one stat it is a semiotic and not the thing itself. We have been to two Finals and three ECF's in this same time. One would never predict that from this regular season average. Looking at the season's records I also saw wide variation, from 37 wins to 53 at the extremes. I then became curious of a measure of variation. The one that came to mind was the standard deviation. After verifying that nine years was an adequate sample size I then calculated the SD. It was five for the nine full seasons. I am not a mathematician and I have not done similar calculations on other teams, so my sense may be incorrect, but my sense is that a SD of five for as volatile a data set as a sports team's performance over nine full seasons is low. Unless I misunderstand it, the Heat's SD of five means that Heat fans can expect 45 wins +/-5, so 40-50 wins, every year.

“We are tethered to 45 wins and it's a pretty short tether.”

The writer knew the post-LBJ reg. season ave. and didn’t read beyond my first paragraph. His immediate response in full:

“Correct. But two Finals appearances”

 

I didn't write back. He knows it. The historical record hangs over the franchise like a guillotine that unaccountably has refused to drop. He knows that, it makes him uncomfortable, defensive, so I didn't write back. I didn't write back that "I acknowledged the unpredicted, unpredictable, miraculous recent post-season runs the last few years, you fucking ADD moronic pencil." I didn't write back that "Oh, I didn't realize that taking the silver medal and not coming close to the gold (losing our Finals appearances four games to two and four games to one) was 601 Biscayne's new aspirational ceiling." I didn't write back that "The only time we have won a championship was on the three occasions that we had superior talent and I challenge you to say that if we have enough talent now and if we just try, try again with the same talent that we had against the "Lakers" and "Nuggets" that we will eventually win a title; that that is the definition of insanity not of winning." I didn't write back.

FT MIA 88 DEN 100. "Heat" 4L

 We fall to 35-30, .538-->44 wins, exactly our wins 2022/23.

Porter, Jr. 3, 86-100, :56. We Don't Have Enough.

87-96, Jokic two, T-Ro miss

86-95, 2:16, Denver FTO

Both sides of Denver's previous TO, there was a "Heat" miss, a Den reb, a Den miss, a Den reb, a Den miss a Den reb and a foul on Bam.

T-Ro miss, Jokic reb, Denver FTO. To make sure they don't fuck it up.

 

Greater Miami will lose their 4th straight.

"Pivotal skirmishes": Denver 22-13 4Q

This is pro forma for the "Nuggets"; this is just what they do.

Denver trey 84-94, 3:38 4Q, Spo FTO

Miami is 17-14 at home. Denver 18-14 on the road.

-7, 3:52

-7, -5, 4:12

3J 82-87. We're back on the 5-7 yo-yo.

3J missed a layup, Bam got reb, Caleb missed trey, Denver got reb, Denver scored. 80-87

Jokic back in

80-85, 6:29 4Q, "Heat" FTO

Caleb cut it to three with a trey; Denver pushed it back to 5 on their next possession. Jokic on bench, game-high 31'. He will check back in after this TO, surely.

75-81, 7:58 4Q. Denver 6-0 run.

"pivotal skirmishes...end of quarter, end of half, swing moments in 2H": Those coming up.

"Heat" 71 Champions 72, End 3Q. "Heat" 27-22 3Q. Jokic 10 pts (?) 12 rebs

Bam leads MIA 15 pts, 11 rebs. Niko 3 pts, 1 reb, 1 ast, 1 steal, 1 t.o., 1 foul +1 in only 16' played, 6th on team.

GREATER MIAMI LEADS 71-70, :23.4 3Q

Michael Porter, Jr. made both FTs. HT "Heat" 44 Champions 50--only a ONE point improvement over the 1Q

J-Buts shooting foul with 2.1"?!

T-Ro t.o.

Bam fouls Jokic who misses his first FT, makes the second, 44-48, 24" 2Q

T-Ro miss, Denver reb...

-3

-1, 1:08 2Q. This is good by the "Heat"!

-3, Denver FTO

Yeah, see? Once we got it down below our usual deficit, they wanted to recalibrate.Jokic hasn't scored since re-entering. I don't know what his normal rest period is but he was out so long I thought maybe he got a knock. He played 11 of the 12 mins of the 1Q and is still game-high with 17'.

-5

Back to 7 again

Down to 5 again on two FTs by T-Ro, 3:27 2Q

34-41, 5:34 2Q

We have played well, but the deficit is what it was at the end of the 1Q. They won't let us close. It was 34-38 and they promptly hit a trey. They are keeping us at arm's length by having their hand around our throat.

30-38, 6:33 2Q, "Heat" FTO

29-35, 7:08 2Q, Jokic back in

In the LONG time Jokic was out we outscored them by ONE point.

23-30, 9:02 2Q (Jokic STILL out)

21-26, 10:59 (Jokic still out)

HT Zollner 52 905 57

Greater Miami 19 Denver 26, End 1Q

We made it more respectable when Jokic went out. He's gonna come back in and we will have no answers.

15-26, 1:15 1Q, Denver FTO

We are completely ineffective against Jokic, 7 pts, 5 rebs in 11'.

15-24, 1:55 1Q. Jokic has 5 rebs

Denver miss, Jokic off reb, Jokic two and one 11-24

T-Ro breaks the run, 11-21, 3:29

9-21

Two Denver misses, two offensive rebs 9-19, 4:45 1Q. Denver 13-0 run

Denver 10-0 run, 9-16, 5:43, Spo FTO

The "Nuggets" just flexed on us.

Two Threes and a dunk: 9-14, 6:34 1Q

Same starters for us:

D-Ro

Niko

J-Buts

Bam-O

T-Ro

Greater Miami 7 The Champions 6

Putin warns the West: Russia is ready for nuclear war--Reuters

MOSCOW, March 13 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin told the West on Wednesday that Russia was technically ready for nuclear war and that if the U.S. sent troops to Ukraine, it would be considered a significant escalation of the conflict.


Putin, speaking ahead of a March 15-17 election which is certain to give him another six years in power, added that the nuclear war scenario was not "rushing" up and he saw no need for the use of nuclear weapons.

###

Moscow is ready to use nuclear weapons if there is a threat to the existence of the Russian state but “there has never been such a need." ...(CNN)

 Putin said that from a military and technical standpoint, Russia is ready for a nuclear war, though he didn’t say one was imminent.

He warned that if US troops were deployed to Ukraine, Russia would treat them as interventionists.

“Apart from (US President Joe) Biden, there are enough other experts in the sphere of Russian-American relations and strategic restraint. So I don’t think that everything is going to go head-on here, but we are ready for it,” Putin said. 

 Putin said the United States is also developing nuclear forces but that doesn’t mean they are ready to “launch a nuclear war tomorrow.”

“They are now setting tasks to increase this modernity, innovation, they have a corresponding plan. We know about it too. They are developing all their components. So are we,” Putin said. 

“Weapons exist in order to use them. We have our own principles.” 

 Russia is also expanding and modernizing the systems it has for delivering nuclear weapons, the intelligence community report stated, “because Moscow believes such systems offer options to deter adversaries, control the escalation of potential hostilities, and counter US and Allied conventional forces.” [Those are Russia's principles.]


These include long-range nuclear-capable missiles and underwater delivery systems meant to penetrate or bypass US missile defenses, according to the report [by] the [U.S.] intelligence community...in its annual unclassified threat assessment, released on Monday.

Culture

"Heat" statement of Culture:

“The Hardest Working, Best Conditioned, Most Professional, Unselfish, Toughest, Meanest, Nastiest Team in the NBA.”

The statement of course, is Pat Riley's. The statement is more applicable to Riley's "Knicks" teams than to the current "Heat"; more applicable to the Alonzo Mourning "Heat" teams than this one. No way we're "meanest, nastiest". "Hardest working", yeah; "most professional", yes under Erik Spoelstra; "best conditioned", that has always stuck in my craw. There should be some correlation with that to "durability", shouldn't there? Yet, Gawd, every season we miss so many games to injury. It's not just impressionistic. In 2022/23 we were ninth out of 30 teams in games missed due to injury. This season we have the sixth most games missed. That's top 20%. 

###

Hardest Working

Saturday before last I was over at my son and daughter-in-law's house watching Rocket League. For a few years there has been a debate in RL over who is best, North American teams or European teams. To me it was European teams; to my son there was no clear difference. I deferred to my son. The desk was divided, with NA partisans (former players who were from the New World) and those who saw Europe as superior. 

Then my son told me that Saturday that player Garrett G, a North American former player and the best-liked, most-respected player in the Rocket League universe, had caused a stir and at the same time settled the debate with his macro view. Hard work in North American Rocket League Culture is "cringe", looked down upon. "It's a game, it should be fun" is NA'ers mantra. They would actually look at the practice stats of players and make fun of the hardest-working players. My son said NA RL'ers mindset is "I have more talent than you, I can still beat you even if you work harder." Peer pressure is important to teenagers and RL players' peak years are in their teens. I was flabbergasted. On the one hand "It's a game, it's fun" is what I love about RL players. They're innocent, they play the game to have fun, they want to be accepted, they are empathetic, nice kids, and they are touched when an old guy like me feels them. 

"Toughest, Meanest, Nastiest": lol. It always startled me to see team shots of the best Rocket Leaguers before a big match, with their wispy mustaches, pasty skins, and glasses.

But on the other hand, for the exceptionally skilled, preternaturally talented Rocket Leaguers, my son finished my thought, "It's their job". Yes! They get paid, more handsomely every year. They forego girlfriends, outside social lives, college, to play Rocket League professionally. They have a very narrow window to make their mark. Why wouldn't they maximize their talent and time? For the rest of their lives, whatever else they do and whether they make a mark or become drones like the rest of us they can always point to this moment when they were kings. 

I told my son that I was flabbergasted by Garrett G's truth-telling because it was also at odds with the wider cultural differences between Europe and the United States. Europeans "cringe" at how hard-working and fast-moving Americans are. They take time to sit down and have coffee in a civilized little coffee shop; we get coffee to go in a paper or plastic cup and drink it in our cars on the way to work. 

I told my son that the chill culture that Garrett G described reminded me of the difference in the wider American culture between West Coast and East Coast, the comfortable, La-La, chill dude of SoCal and the "I'll break your face" of NYC and asked if RL players were predominantly from the Left Coast. "The opposite," he said, because of the lack of server time lag in the East. It was an American generational thing, not an American coastal thing. I was stumped, fascinated, flabbergasted.

I told my son that the criticism that you hear constantly the older generations make of Millennials is the lack of responsibility, accountability and effort. One nutshell encapsulation of this criticism is "If you're going to do a thing, do it well." Practice! I told him that this is the reason I hate the Boston "Celtics". Like naturally super-skilled Rocket Leaguers, "Celtics" players lack responsibility, accountability and effort and think they can by on just their talent; that they have the attention span of teenagers and are not rarely booed off their home court by their older generation fans. I admire talent but I cannot respect a team like the "Celtics", nor work-averse Rocket League players and teams.

My son said that Garrett G has worked a paradigm shift among NA RL'ers. We'll see. We'll also see if the "Celtics" can change and finally win a championship with these players. Both need an infusion of responsibility, accountability, mental toughness, pride.

Talisman

NEW YORK -- What a difference a player makes -- and, specifically, OG Anunoby for the New York Knicks.

Anunoby finished with 14 points, 4 rebounds and 2 assists and was a plus-28 in 29 minutes.

It was a lot more fun all around for New York (38-27)…New York jumped out to an early lead and never looked back, leading by 20-plus for most of the second half on its way to a more-than-comfortable victory.

Anunoby played like he hadn't missed a day, immediately slotting back into his role of defensive ace and opportunistic scorer with aplomb.

"I thought OG gave us a great lift for the first time back after a layoff," Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. "The energy and just the effort plays and the movement, the shooting, added a lot to the team."

Judge Dismisses Several Counts in Georgia Election Case as "legally deficient"

Judge Scott McAffee tossed counts of "Solicitation of Violation of Oath by a Public Officer" against Trumpie, Giuliani, Meadows, Eastland, and others. In his Order McAffee wrote that the counts,

"fail to allege sufficient detail regarding the nature of their commission"; "lack of detail concerning an essential legal element" is "fatal."

Trumpie now faces ten counts, Giuliani ten, Meadows one, Eastman eight. 

The ruling today has nothing to do with the pending motion to disqualify District Attorney Fani Willis.

As I was making coffee I was imagining beginning a casual lunch with a “Heat” beat writer from a telescopic perspective. “Aren’t we fortunate, you and even me, you in covering, I in merely following, the “Heat” for 35 years? Can you think of as interesting a sports club, at least since Riley came here? There is no other org that is as philosophical, no other that has a “Culture”, an honest-to-God philosophy of basketball life, that they practice! They're unique in sports to my knowledge. I swear, I don't know what to do with myself when the season ends.”

I have dreamt about Greater Miami, my new nickname for the "Heat". I think about them much asleep and awake. They are a compelling obsession.

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

In English soccer parlance, he is called the "talisman", the one player, usually of course, the best, on whom wins and losses turn. In Manhattan the talisman is OG Anunoby. Tonight Anunoby had merely 14 points, fourth team-high, but a sparkling +28, third team-high. On PhilaBoo, while a Procedure is Addressed and a Beard has been shaved off, the talisman is Maxey. It was the first game back from injury for both talismen and while Maxey scored a second team-high 17 points he was a woeful team-worst -29. Neither could the vaunted Kyle Lowry Effect blunt the Force tonight as the "Knicks" partied in the Garden 106-79.

The Eastern Great Middle is finished for March 12, 2024.




Reasonably Greater Miami can finish now lower than where they are now and no higher than 4th. Were the season to end tonight we would face PhilaBoo (Joel Embiid is expected back for the post-season) in the first round of the play-in. If we won, we would be the 7th seed in the playoffs and open vs either Beer or Gilbert ☠; if we lost (as we did our first play-in last season from the same seed), we would play the winner of the nine-ten pairing, likely Chi or Atl. If we won that, our second, play-in (as we also did last season), we would be the 8th seed. We would then open our first round of the playoffs against the one-seed, prohibitively Boston City. We will not win 51 games this season. We have 18 games left. To reach my predicted 51 wins we would have to win 16. We are tethered to 45 wins in the regular season and it’s a pretty short tether.