Taking it Outside

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).

Example eleventybillion. I was going to excerpt Mike Isikoff's story but you should read the whole thing at the link. You can access the document here. Of course, the document is not the the OLC opinion itself, which is so super super secret that it cannot be turned over to anyone up to and including Congress, but a "white paper." To paraphrase a learned counsel on a similar topic as related to me, the fact that you're not willing to present your legal arguments in public pretty much means they're utter bullsh1t. That was in relation to the G.W. Bush administration but it equally applies to the Obama administration. Of course, at bottom, it seems the American people writ large want it to be so, and thus who am I to argue?

So since when must Democratic Presidents nominate a Republican for Secretary of Defense? Yeah Panetta blah blah blah, but when was the last time a Republican nominated a Democrat for SecDef? I'm sure google would tell me if it ever has happened and... seems not! There's some bad hoo-doo going on here.

Fuck you. That is all.

Congratulations Democracy! Nothing like a lame duck Congress voting for this legislation at almost the last possible minute. Yet another Constitutional amendment to put on the list. Broader issues aside, I still don't understand the Democratic political calculus of voting on this before the new Congress. Why? Would there be no deal with the "new" leadership in the House and thus we'd all be Thelma & Louise-ing it off the cliff? WTF? On the tax issues in the legislation itself, it's mostly the same old same old. An increase in rates on those making 400 or 450k +, an extension of the estate tax exemption of $5M+ plus inflation indexing (albeit with a rate increase from 35% to 40 on amounts above that), permitting an expiration of the payroll tax decrease, plus a whole host of corporate tax "extenders." The farce that is U.S. tax policy continues. Hooray!

Seriously. He's like running around the basement trying to light things on fire singing "In a Gadda Da Vida" while simultaneously putting anything smaller than a golf ball in his mouth.

I flag this article on CNN.com. After Bob Costas used his halftime remarks on NBC's Sunday Night Football a few weeks ago to advocate for more gun control after a member of the Kansas City Chiefs shot the mother of his three month old child, then drove to the Chiefs' facility and shot himself, the NRA was swift to react less than 24 hours later, noting that Costas "offended millions of law-abiding gun-owning football fans w his gun-ban rant & owes us an apology"* and that the NRA was "going to stand and fight." (you can see Costas' remarks here along with some rather interesting twitter responses) After Newtown? Nothing from the NRA. As you'll see from the CNN article, the NRA also went silent after the shootings at a movie theater earlier this year, but they didn't go away. Don't expect them to this time. And, if you can't defend your principles in the face of adversity (for lack of a better word) NRA, WTF good are you? *"owes us an apology"?!!? Fncking really NRA?

Congratulations.

Even though there's no actual war, there really ought to be. I mean, I'm at the coffee shop and... Christmas music. I'm walking through my office and... Christmas music. The damn office building foyer has a Christmas tree and presents. In recent years I've noticed major retailers (*cough* Target *cough*) actually taking down their Halloween displays before Halloween, in order to get a leg up on Christmas. Halloween represented the last known barrier to a year-round Christmas retail orgy, and it seems to be failing! Feh. I like Christmas and all (although it's a Hanukkah year at our house in 2012), but holy flipping Jesus enough already!

Now that that's out of the way, let's look to the 2016 race! Yes I'm going there. Paul Ryan for the GOP vs..... who? Biden? H. Clinton? I can't imagine either of them would want to run given how old they'll be, but you never know. Is there someone on-deck for the Democrats? Is Paul Ryan the heir apparent? Inquiring minds want to know because, well, we're insane! Other than Ryan, I honestly have no idea. For the GOP, Santorum maybe (as disgusting as that would be)? Dems....? Drawing a huge blank there. Rahm? I guess something for Obama to consider in appointing his cabinet and high WH officials. Anyway, off to the Fiscal Cliff/Taxmaggedon!