Taking it Outside

Peacefully, of course. Say, Northeast, Upper Midwest, Southeast, Lower Midwest, West Coast, Mountain States, and Texas? Or is it this way already? (Prompted by a comment at the mothership)

Link.

So, for my first entry in the "get off my lawn!" category, how is it that I have no idea who any of these people on the Grammys, Emmys, America's Choice, and MTV Music Video/Movie awards are? When did that happen? I suppose I can be excused from the MTV Music Video ignorance as there is no such thing as music videos on MTV anymore, but what about the rest of them? Martha Quinn, where are you? Sniff.

Mr. LaPierre.

Um, since at least 1868 (as the linked post notes). That this masquerades as a "tough" question from Justice Scalia is good example of his overratedness by legal observers. Sex-based discrimination has been unconstitutional since at least the date of the 14th Amendment's ratification, that Congress, the President, SCOTUS, and US society in general can't live up to ideals clearly expressed in the Constitution is unfortunate (to say the least), but not controlling. Historical examples of such are too numerous to cite.

Anyone interested? I think Kennedy is clearly a vote to allow "same-sex marriage"* in at least one of the two cases, if not both. Wouldn't surprise me of Roberts came along on one of the two cases, but that strikes me as unlikely. Scalia and Thomas are lost causes. No idea on Alito, but he gets lumped in with the aforementioned two absent considerable evidence to the contrary. Interesting times. *This framing is incorrect as the underlying issue is when a government - state or federal - can discriminate on the basis of sex. Generally the answer is, not much, so one would think in the area of marriage this would be strictly verboten, but the US is a funny place.

Slarti's check bounced (I kid!) and so the mothership is down indefinitely. I'm afraid to look at the prior open thread that as of this writing has reached 88 comments so thought I'd throw up a new one. Its NCAA tournament time, will we see Gonzaga make the Final Four (probably not)? Or another Cinderella run from a non-major power conference along the lines of Butler or VCU (St. Mary's anyone)? Also, Obama is in Israel. And....? CNN covers the important issues here. Have they not seen the first Austin Powers movie? Anything else on anyone's mind?

Has been taken down by the blogging Gods, per LJ. Discuss here what you might have discussed there! Or not!

Showboating? Much Ado About Nothing? Josh Marshall seemed to think that it was actually a good thing as it lead to a real debate in the world's greatest deliberative body. I have to say, though, it was pretty sad that he folded like a cheap suit after receiving a two sentence letter from the AG with an obvious loophole. Talk about Sen. Paul or alternatively, whatever.

If you've watched Sportscenter on ESPN for more than 3 seconds over the past two weeks you were reminded (likely more than once) that Michael Jordan turned 50 yesterday. Lost in all the spectacular highlights and championships are a few things I thought I'd talk about, just because he was my sports hero as I grew up playing basketball in the Midwest. In no particular order: He was a great leaper off of one foot or two. His contemporary, Dominique Wilkins, was a great two-foot leaper. Another contemporary, Clyde Drexler, was a great one foot leaper. But Michael could do both, and equally well, it seemed. He had HUGE hands. In one if his many iconic posters "Wings", which you can see here (mouse over to get a bigger view), his hands were big enough to touch three of the seams of a basketball. A friend of mine is six foot five (nearly as tall as Jordan) and could only touch two. In one of the (endless) highlights from his NBA dunk-contests played on Sportscenter, he grab the basketball as I would a tennis ball. That's an exaggeration, but not by much. I recall reading that Tex Winter (I think), long-time Chicago Bulls assistant coach, was asked circa 1990 if there was anything that Jordan wasn't excellent at in basketball. He thought for a bit and answered something to the effect of "well, he doesn't throw a great two handed chest pass..." On a related note, again IIRC, prior to that time anything the coaching staff asked him to develop, he did, very quickly, and again, excellently (the example I'm thinking of is a mid-range pull up jumper). Also, the coaching staff asked him at one point, likely during his first couple years in the NBA, "what do you do when you're double teamed?" His response was "well I could beat the double team, or also...." They were quite taken aback that his first thought was to "beat" the double team when the routine and almost always correct answer was "find the open man" (since by definition there would be one), but eventually they realized that the opposite was true when it comes to Jordan. See, e.g., this clip where he actually beats three Knicks and then destroys Patrick Ewing, to round it up to four. Finally, if you're still reading, Jordan was just smooth. I watch Kobe Bryant and Lebron James today, the closest comparisons, and most of what James does seems forced, like he's thinking about everything in advance and then planning out what he wants to do. Bryant looks more natural, but the same for a fair bit of the time. But if you watch almost any highlight clip of Jordan, it's all natural, almost like he could predict the future (see this highlight beginning at around 50 seconds in the youtube and the subsequent replays).