SNY.com: Knicks Mailbag: What would you do as the team’s GM?

The most interesting statement is the one about Chris Paul. There is certainly the possibility that Rose sees him as a great PR move with limited long-term consequences, and the more I think about it, the more likely it seems. One would think that Paul is still hungry for a championship, so he’d probably not be on board with the Knicks, but who else can eat that horrendous contract for 2 years?

I’ve said this before but given how truncated next season looks like it will be, this “off-season” is the easiest punt decision of all time.

I was a fan of Paul before the world changed, but now just take advantage of this gift and set yourself up to make moves in the summer of 2021. Noah will be gone by then. Randle’s deal will be non guaranteed for the following season. Knox and Frank will have been decided.

It’s a great opportunity to do nothing – unless a complete no-brainer deal falls into your lap – and a terrible time to pay a premium to make a splash.

Owen:

As for what I would do as GM? Hope to get lucky in the draft.

Sadly, this is the wrong draft. Even more reason to suck for the 2021 draft.

I’m looking at a list of UFA in summer of 2021. Tons of player options at the top (Paul, LeBron, Kawhi, Griffin, George) that will likely be accepted, since a shrinking cap would limit how much they could re-up for. And neither Griffin ($38.9M) nor Paul ($44.2M) will be offered anything close to what they’re promised in 2021-22, so luckily, the Knicks likely won’t be able to fuck themselves by offering them contracts.

After that, there are:

Hayward
Conley
Lowry
DeRozan
Otto Porter
Holiday
Gobert
Davis
Drummond
Adams
Giannis
Aldridge
Batum
Oladipo
THJ (lol)
Schroder
Fournier
Dieng
Portis
Danny Green
Iguodala
Oubre
James Johnson

And a bunch of other people not worth talking about. If I were running the show, and I never would, because I’m not totally incompetent, I would mark 2021 as not an opportunity to make a splash in free agency, but to absorb unpalatable contracts for the teams jockeying to sign some collection of the above players.

I mean yeah, if you have an opportunity to sign Giannis and Davis — meaning that they have agreed to team up, and express publicly their desire to come to NY — then you do it 10 out of 10 times and start selling off draft assets to fill out the team with shooters and defenders. But that seems totally unlikely.

Thank you, everyone, for the support. It means a lot.

I’m of 2 minds when it comes to CP3. On the one hand, he’s still REALLY good and it feels like we could get him from OKC without giving up any young players or picks and might even get back a pick. Plus, next season will be truncated and then he’s an expiring contract and maybe by then a contender would trade for him at the deadline for a final championship push. Plus, even if we draft a PG like LaMelo, that PG won’t be ready to lead right away and having CP3 as a mentor could be huge for that player (plus you can always roll with 2 PG line ups).

On the other hand…its a huge contract. And if next year’s draft is so much better, it might be wise to have one more year of sucky basketball to get through to get one more lottery pick.

But then again, we have the extra Dallas pick and second rounders plus with the Corona hurting teams financially, it might be easier the next few drafts to throw cash towards some teams to move up.

Here is what I would look to do.

1. Hopefully draft LaMelo or Halliburton.
2. Trade Randle
3. Sign Gallo to a short term deal.
4. Maybe package our second rounder or some cash with our clippers pick to move up in the draft this year for our second pick. Pick a stretch 4.
5. Bring back Elf (I know) and Taj and Bullock. Let Ellington go.
6. Resign Dot to a team friendly deal. Same with Harkless
7. Bring Iggy and Wooten up to the big boy team.

Roll with this team:

Halliburton or LaMelo/Elf
RJ/Frank/Dotson
Harkless/Bullock/Iggy
Gallo/Knox
Mitch/Taj/Wooten

This team wouldn’t be very good but you’d have lots of youth, better spacing than this last season and you’d probably get a lotto pick. I do Gallo over someone like Wood bc I think Gallo would be a fun reunion and is a good comp for Knox.

My condolences Swift and just want to say I’m glad you’re here again.

I like your plan (Gallo is a fine fit and a fan favorite), but I might want to also draft a shooter like Bane and play RJ more at the 3, although we would probably start Bullock. So in effect, it’s a plan to surround RJ with shooters (Bullock, Haliburton, Gallo) and let him cook.

Maybe we could even work a Gallo-Randle sign and trade? That might make sense for both teams.

I’m really interested to see how the Celtics situation plays out. Hayward is opting in for sure and Tatum is up for a max deal. Their mother load of draft picks is pretty much shot. So that will be $100 mill in cap space on Tatum, Walker, Brown and Smart in 2021-22. That does not seem like an ECF team.

Swift, I hope you know that out of a desire for internal consistency, it is still my solemn duty to roast you for, you know, liking the Knicks and thinking they’re ever going to be good.

Swift, there’s nothing I could say which would help with your unfathomable loss. BUT there is something I’ll tell you which will help against Jowles. If he ever tries to roast you by bringing up Bargs or your foolish optimism, put him on the grill by reminding him of his MAGA-like devotion to Berri and the horrible defunct WP metric.

Maybe there is something I could say on a more serious note though. My cousins lost their infant to SIDS. Time is on your side. They were zombies for a period but went on to have a now healthy 2yo. In addition to a support group, maybe consider marriage counseling. A tragedy of this nature often puts great stress on a marriage. Just the two of you airing out your feelings with a skilled facilitator might help preempt any future problems. Also, perhaps contact Jim Cavan for any advice on what helped them. Whatever path you take, your being a naturally optimistic person should stand you in good stead.

No matter what we do, I do think we should be looking to throw in cash or second round picks to move up, both this year and next, with our later first round picks. With teams being financially hit hard, The Knicks have an advantage cause Dolan is so rich and is still willing to spend.

So 5 million plus a late first rounder could move us up to a late lotto pick. Or 5 million plus a second rounder could move us up to the late first round. Or 5 million alone could net us another pick. Teams will be strapped for cash and we should be looking to take advantage of that.

yeah, but maybe next year’s draft will be the time to make a move like that with the Dallas pick (assuming its a late first rounder). Use the Dallas pick and a second rounder/cash to move up to the lotto and snag 2 lotto picks next year when its supposed to be a really strong draft. Teams are going to be reeling from the financial fallout of covid for several seasons at least.

There are times moving up can be a savvy play (see Doncic, Luka) but I just don’t see it in this draft. There’s almost no order of picks 1-8 or so that would surprise me, and I could be talked into and out of 4-5 different players with the #1 overall pick.

Maybe if someone like Devin Vassell starts slipping it could make sense to package our two later picks for him, but I don’t see that happening. I see this draft as one where you simply want as many darts as possible.

As for Chris Paul, it’s a tired discussion at this point. We’ve been over it a million times and I still haven’t seen a single coherent explanation as to what benefits it would bring to the Knicks in the short or long term. To be clear, so we don’t waste a ton of time, there is zero chance OKC unloads him with sweetener. They simply have no urgent reason to do so.

Yeah, but they’d never be on the floor together and you can pay coaches whatever you want. Tying up any amount of cap space so Noah can whisper in Mitch’s ear on the bench and maybe play 12 MPG? Pass.

I’m suggesting Knicks shouldn’t have waived him. He and Mitch would have been together for the 18-19 season. Noah’s contract then expires and he’s gone – no 6m cap hold for the next 3 years. And the fact that they’re not on the floor together is a plus. Mitch gets to watch him from the bench for 15-20 mpg and Noah coaches him in practices.

Sign Gallinari for 2 years.

The team needs a stretch 4.

He loves NY.

NY loves him.

He wants a multi-year contract (that’s what kept him out of Miami at the trade deadline), but he doesn’t necessarily want a very long contract because he’s on record saying he would like to finish his career in Italy.

I can’t see how this doesn’t happen other that our management is incompetent.

Well, not coherent basketball or cap-wise certainly doesn’t rule it out. As I said, it would be a PR move more than anything else, and new GMs tend to want to make splashy moves. I agree that OKC is unlikely to package him with picks. So it becomes a matter of 1) will Rose do it (certainly possible) and 2) what will come of it if it happens, i.e. what would be the most positive path from there? (certainly interesting.)

More generally, it’s pretty limiting to only discuss moves that are in line with what we personally would or wouldn’t do. I agree that it’s silly to discuss the merits of trading draft picks for Griffin or Wall…that would mean that we were in for total insanity and ineptitude. I don’t think a Paul trade is quite that desperate or far-fetched, so even if it isn’t what I would do, I think it’s worth discussing in terms of “if they do it, then what?”

Danilo Gallinari will be 32 next season and has a long injury history. Hot take incoming, but I would actually not hold it against management if we didn’t give him a big contract covering years in which we’re likely to be bad anyway.

I also don’t think Phil Jackson was a good executive though, so you should take all of my basketball opinions with a grain of salt.

When I look at the Knicks roster and think about what I would do as GM, I am struck by the shortage of good two way players. Robinson can both defend and score efficiently, although his scoring is limited. Other than that who do we have? So we have to choose, defense or offense first. If we go defense first our lineup is something like Frank, Mitch, Dotson, Bullock and Harkless; a lineup that would be abysmal on offense. If we go offense first, then maybe Randle, Portis, Payton, Barrett and Dotson? That line up probably wouldn’t be good at anything. It’s really hard to pickfor offense since our only go to scorer is Randle and our only volume three point shooter of any reasonable percentage is Portis. From this i come to the conclusion we’re better off focusing on defense, but we are still going to be bad. We should keep Portis even though he’s overpaid because we need shooting off the bench and I don’t see us doing much with the cap space we would free up by releasing him. We should expect to be bad, draft the best player available and hope some if our players get better at scoring (I’m looking at you, Frank, RJ and Knox). It will be painful, but failing some brilliant deal by our management team, that’s what we are stuck with.

I look at our roster and I see a roster that could be decent in a few years except that we lack an ascending superstar and until we get that (legit) superstar, it doesn’t really matter. You can have good players, even decent starters, and still only be ok (if you’re coached well) if you don’t have a star. Until you have a star player, a real superstar, you will never be more than average at best.

I mean dudes like Dotson, Bullock, Peyton, Randle, Taj, Frank…even RJ and Mitch (who I think both have the floor of decent NBA starter)…all of them would look like good rotation players on a team that had, say, James Harden or The Greek Freak or peak CP3 or peak Durant or whoever. We used to give Ruru a hard time about gravity effect bc he was using it to defend Melo but real, legit superstars like Lebron, etc…do have a gravity affect in that they make their other teammates better just by taking the pressure off of them. Ellington is a decent 3 point shooter when given open looks but looked like garbage on a team with poor spacing, bad 3 point shooting and no star players. James Harden draws so much attention on offense it makes everyone else’s job easier. Hell, peak Melo with peak Chandler and good ball movement bc of Kidd gave us a 54 win team that maybe could have made the finals if injuries didn’t derail that team.

So we need a superstar and hopefully we draft one in the next few drafts cause until that happens, it won’t really matter if we get decent role players or not. We should slot RJ and Mitch in as starters for the future but I don’t think we can pencil either of them in as stars in the making. I think for both you are looking at fringe all star players at their peak though Mitch could still surpass that if he really takes some leaps forward.

So use those extra picks, those second round picks and that cash to trade up the next few years. Tank/develop for one more year. Take on extra salary to get another pick. We need more lotto tickets.

Another rosy take on getting CP3 I heard was that instead of having 40 million tied up in 3 average veterans, eating minutes otherwise taken by young players, you’d have 40 million tied up in one GOOD player who would make the young players better but there would be more minutes to go around for the young players.

Off topic but I’m about halfway through Harvey Araton’s When the Garden Was Eden and have learned a ton despite having previously considered myself decently well-versed in Knicks history. This is embarrassing but I’m not sure I knew who Cazzie Russell was before reading.

Anyway, great book for anyone but especially those who, like me, didn’t get to experience those teams.

It would be so nice to have a good team, man.

The greatness of those Knicks teams from a fan’s perspective was only surpassed by Marv Albert’s greatness as a radio play-by-play guy. Home games were not regularly televised so you relied on him to paint the picture for you and you could literally visualize the games based on his brilliance. Same was true for the Rangers radio broadcasts. Breen is a pretty good runner-up but Marv in his radio prime was without peer. And the TV guys (mainly Bob Wolff and Cal Ramsay) were so-so at best, so you would almost rather hear the games on radio.

What’s really funny is remembering back on how the TV picture seemed pretty clear at the time (and I watched many games on a “portable” with rabbit ears and the back half on that you had to pound on from time to time to unscramble the picture.) It’s crazy how bad it looks on today’s big-screen HD TVs.

(Or, it would help eliminate that line of thinking altogether when it failed.)

Like the theory that veteran mentorship matters in skill development terms, this idea cannot fail, it can only be failed. Unfortunately.

Here’s a link to Holtzman’s Heroes, a LP retrospective of the ’72-’73 season narrated by Marv himself. Ahhh, when vinyl was king…

btw on knicks vinly…i have the 69-70 season lp narrated by marty glickman…good shit…

I still want picks, at least 2, from OKC to take back CP3 since few teams will be looking to add $40M to the payroll at this point.

May be a rare opportunity to improve in the short run and long run.

No idea if OKC will actually dump salary, but they have to be considering it. They can afford to give up the picks.

If i were Knicks GM I’d go “Crocodile mode”.
Wait in the mud till a team “In Need” gets near me.
Patience is my name.
Lurking is my game.

things are little busy at work; but, i’ve been reading what everyone has been writing and thinking all morning as to what moves i might make as knicks’ GM…

i still got nothing…back to work i guess…

there is always so much more that connects us than what separates us…physical characteristics, personal experiences and beliefs, personality (not sure if your personality is actually a physical characteristic or not) are meaningful, but, not the whole of it when it comes to community participation…

i know it’s weird – i always keep in mind that we all gotta get up and shit (if you’re lucky and things are flowing smoothly inside) in the morning…it kind of puts things in perspective for me…the fact that many of you are trusting enough to share your life – definitely helps me to see the world a little clearer…

if mike k and bc do nothing else of any significance in life (i’m sure they have and will do more) – creating and maintaining this community is a job well done…i know i lean on you all quite often…

swiftandabundant,

I haven’t been reading the message board much, I just learned about your tragedy.

I can’t imagine the kind of pain you and your wife are going through. There are no words I can say to help ease the pain. I’m so sorry. All I can say is that I care. I hope the pain eases and I hope you have another child that can bring you the joy you deserve.

We may not want to participate in the Delete Eight tournament.

Ainge may suffer from paralysis by analysis.

He’s one player away from serious contention. He’s needs a good center. They have some young players that may develop into what they need, but they don’t need that much.

When i press on my cellphone’s central internet “key” i get news related to my recent searches.
You know: knicks, porn and other serious stuff like cat news, Kardashian news, music, cinema….
The latest knicks news that i saw (but didn’t press to read the whole article)were:
Lebron was almost a knick until….
Jabbar was almost a knick until…
Doc Rivers is maybe on the knicks coaching list….

I have the slight impression that they treat knicks fans as experimental hamsters but I’m not sure 100% yet.

alsep73:
We may not want to participate in the Delete Eight tournament.

I think this will be the first controversial Knicks move I agree with

I hadn’t checked in on this site in a couple of days until now and just like everyone else I want to send my condolences to you Swift, I can’t imagine the pain you and your wife are going thru but I wish you all the best.

This separate bubble for the 8 loser teams might be the dumbest idea ever. Anyway today was a great day just being able to see video of Judge taking BP and Cole on the Yankee Stadium mound blowing 99 mph gas by hitters. Have no idea if the MLB season will be played but man just the site of basically spring training footage was a sight for sore eyes so I hope they can somehow pull off the season. I have no interest whatsoever in this NBA Orlando bubble thing so for me right now it’s all about MLB and watching European soccer.

Z-man
July 2, 2020 at 9:06 pm
This bit on P&T is funny!

The Lonzo Ball clip was epic!

LaMelo, but yeah.

Yep……Jesus that was funny. What an epic case of suck fever.

It just reinforces how much of a crap shoot this draft is, relatively speaking. I honestly think that there will be a whole bunch of NBA rotation players out of this draft, and maybe a few stars, but who the hell are they? If ever we needed a wunderkind scout like Kline on the staff, this is the time!

To be clear, so we don’t waste a ton of time, there is zero chance OKC unloads him with sweetener. They simply have no urgent reason to do so.

Why don’t you think money is a reason?

The thunder are gonna be in some serious financial pain, and they won’t have their usual corporate welfare check to get by on.

Z-man: Have you read anything that verifies that they are looking to dump Paul for this reason?

Do I need to?

TNFH posited that it is an absolute certainty that no reason exists that would cause Clay Bennett to want to offer a sweetener to escape from an $88 million debt in the midst of the worst economic crisis since 1929.

And you need me to find an article that explains why that might be wrong?

Yeah, I think Hubert makes a pretty good point. Given the current landscape of the world and sports, and the specific situation of OKC w/r/t surplus draft picks and location in a podunk market, you can probably extract some real nice assets for taking on the Chris Paul contract.

I’ll take some real nice assets!

If we are going to foray into free agency this offseason, give me either:
1. Ingram(for Knox and one of the Dallas picks) and Bertans, while trading Randle for a bad deal and a pick.
2. Bertans and Harris, while trading Randle for a bad deal and a pick.

Short of that, give me a young PG who can shoot at least 35% from 3, and Jalen Smith with our 1sts- then swing for the fences with our 2nd

One thing that became clear in looking into Paul’s OKC situation is that he is really enjoying playing there and his teammates have raved about his attitude and leadership. And Paul has raved about his teammates and is apparently really enjoying playing there.

It paints a complicated picture for OKC going forward. If they keep Paul but dismantle the team around him, will he start pressuring OKC to trade him? Do they let Gallo and Roberson go and try to remain competitive by replacing them with lower cost guys like, say, Mook? Do they go into full rebuild mode by ditching Paul and Adams, or just wait until their contracts expire?

I maintain that OKC will not be dumping Paul with sweetener. I get that COVID changes the cap landscape, but I think the league will institute an artificial cap that isn’t tied to revenues at least for next season as to not disrupt planning around the original projection (e.g. the kind of planning OKC did in determining they can take on Paul’s contract for the next few years).

After that Paul becomes expiring, and at that point I do believe Presti would be able to talk Bennett into paying the tax for one year as opposed to giving up a first-round pick.

At a minimum, we know OKC wasn’t looking to dump him with sweetener prior to COVID. There was interest from Miami and others, but the hangup was OKC understandably thought his play made him a positive asset even with his price tag. So to subscribe to this theory you have to think the league will allow COVID to radically disrupt these kinds of calculations. I don’t see that happening.

So sure, if OKC actually wants to dump him with a first-round pick we’re having an entirely different conversation. I’d take him on under those circumstances. It ain’t gonna happen though.

Does anyone know what would happen to the luxury tax threshold if the cap shrinks substantially year over year?

The speculation couldn’t not be more specious and idle than that in this thread, but the Paul contract becomes almost certain to warrant sweetener if the Thunder have to pay $1.50+ in taxes for every dollar over the line. The penalties become incredibly steep after the >$20M mark. They can get to $3.50 or more.

Yes if the salary cap goes down the luxury tax line will change with it, but the salary cap next year will likely be the same as this year at $109M even if BRI goes down significantly. This will protect owners from unforeseen luxury tax bills and make planning easier. See

https://www.google.com/amp/s/sports.yahoo.com/amphtml/report-nba-salary-cap-remain-190026583.html

Well, if OKC is willing to deal Paul but not with a sweetener, the Knicks should just walk away, unless maybe OKC would be willing to take back Randle, and hopefully DSJ as well.

But, of course, WWRD. What will Rose do?

Makur Maker commits to Howard! That is a little nuts and a little awesome.

If the Thunder won’t deal Paul with a sweetener, then we should walk away. Or… perhaps WE can add the sweeteners. Two can play this game, Presti! (I read about it in James L Dolan: The Art Of The Deal)

I’m reading Just Mercy. Sure, there’s no institutional racism in this country. Right.

KnickfaninNJ: So you are suggesting that the OKC owner change his team from a mid playoff team in the West to a lottery team and actually pay picks to do that.

Yes, because there will probably be considerably less financial incentive to be a playoff team.

Is it reasonable to expect the 2020-2021 NBA season will generate strong gate revenue for good teams?

If everyone is playing in a 25% full arena, you’re not a title contender, and you’re cheap… Why not cut costs?

Hubert: My apologies, Z-Man. The salty asshole version of myself took over my phone at 2am this morning. I should have made my point without being a dick.

No sweat, Hubert. Honestly, I took no offense to either your points or your tone. Just disagree with your premise, for the reasons I stated, i.e. boiling it down to $88 mill vs. draft picks is overly simplistic and not really accurate. But I agree that it isn’t a certainty that OKC doesn’t choose to do a sweetened deal.

OKC might actually go all in and use some of their picks to become MORE competitive. Maybe they’ll let gallo walk and go after Wood or use Gallo in a sign and trade with picks to get another really good player… They have some options.

The Honorable Cock Jowles:
Fuckin kumbaya around here these days

Eat shit, asshole

(there, it’s fixed)

“Fuckin kumbaya around here these days”

I can end that easily:

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/07/02/michigan-henry-ford-health-study-finds-hydroxychloroquine-lowers-covid-19-death-rate/5365090002/

Cliffs Notes:

The study analyzed 2,541 patients hospitalized among the system’s six hospitals between March 10 and May 2 and found 13% of those treated with hydroxychloroquine died while 26% of those who did not receive the drug died.

https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(20)30534-8/fulltext

Guys, we’ve been getting along for, like, 24 hours! Why poke the bear?

Yeeeeeah bob, we can all tell that really you’re just very desperate for the Donald Trump broken clock to be right about something.

bobneptune:
Maybe bob can tell us why he has a boner about that study but is far less tumescent about this study:

I
Yes … I suck! I’m happy there is a 50% increase in survivalwith a therapy. WTF is the matter with me.

f you read farther on in the news article there are some much less impressive numbers and the article doesn’t explain how the study can have two such different results at the same time.

“Maybe bob can tell us why he has a boner about that study but is far less tumescent about this study:”

If you would be kind enough to post the actual Oxford study rather than a description of it I’d be happy to comment.

The Detroit study gave the hydroxychloroquine to the patients randomized within 48 hours of admission and seemingly that made the difference. It seems if you give it after the cytokine storm has fulminated it doesn’t help.

Always happy to be of service…….

You are pretty funny though….. an intervention seems to help critically ill patients and you are angry because it doesn’t fit within your world view.

Am I happy about it…. bleepin right I am

Wait, so the illiterate president, who knows nothing about medical science, who does not read, who asks for Powerpoint presentations to learn about his own government, who rules virtually exclusively by gut feeling, impulse and flashy sales pitches from TV personalities, who asked on national TV if maybe we could inject a disinfectant into the body, predicted the efficacy of a drug months before one localized observational trial claimed that it reduces mortality?

Oh, okay. Shit, I almost played myself. Damn, I mean, fuck. How could I have been so blind?

Guys, we’ve been getting along for, like, 24 hours! Why poke the bear?

what’s wrong al, don’t you like arguing for arguments sake…you may need to learn to distract and guide discussions a little more – left to our own devices – we will always devolve in to a raucous of some sort…

after all – it is the New York knicks which we care so much about…new yorkers aren’t normally the most mellow of folks…

i grew up in a house were there was a lot of arguing (until thankfully my father decided to go try on another family)…i can’t stand arguing – it literally makes me sick…i just see no purpose to it…although, i do enjoy watching two humans beat the hell out of each other inside a cage or ring…

literally the only two humans in the whole world i ever argue with are the two god kids – to which i am consistently reminding them of that fact…i get the dynamic though, it’s there job to push boundaries and it’s my job to try to hold the line…

anyone else tuning in to hamilton tonight?

“his usual nasty and unpleasant”

Really? Do I often call people racists and various other epithets unprovoked? If I do…. I apologize. I am not beyond returning fire, though.

Do I often call people racists and various other epithets unprovoked?

I love the pearl-clutching about calling racism racism.

Okay, Bob.

Whatever you say, bud.

Bob, the Detroit study you cite quotes both a big difference and a small difference between chloroquine and no chloroquine and doesn’t explain anything about why there are two sets of very differing results. It also doesn’t do any analysis of if there were differences in pre-existing conditions or patient health between the two groups. It’s more like a news article than a scientific paper. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong, but you also can’t conclude it’s right. When a full paper is published and reviewed and the result is repeated, then I’ll have confidence in it. Before that it’s one of many news articles about studies that give very different results on chloroquine.

***Really? Do I often call people racists***

You spent an entire thread RANTING AND RAVING about how racist Owen is, remember that one Bob? I do, because it was peak-level idiocy from the thread-ruining GOAT.

You spent an entire thread RANTING AND RAVING about how racist Owen is, remember that one Bob? I do, because it was peak-level idiocy from a thread-ruining GOAT.

You’d have to repost it in context of what might have provoked it and I would be happy to comment.

How many threads does Bob have to take a shit on before the moderators realize he isn’t potty trained?

“bob’s smarter than the average wingnut, which is kind of like having less plastic surgery than the average Kardashian.”

I think damned with faint praise is more concise 🙂

“How many threads does Bob have to take a shit on before the moderators realize he isn’t potty trained?”

Hey… I just gently tweaked Jowles’ “kumbaya” comment…. y’all didn’t need to melt down because people were actually surviving COVID. I just posted some interesting positive information in this sea of darkness.

Should the mods choose to ban me I will certainly not reappear with an alias. But I find it pretty humorous when you can’t defeat a position with logic…. bring out the ban hammer, I guess that worked in your universities.

Even my 11-yr-old son has teachable moments…
“I guess that worked in your universities.”
Bob, I’m pretty sure that not one of us owns a university. In fact, the only person I can think of who did own one ran it as a scam until it went bankrupt. Who was that guy again?
When you write stuff like that, it comes across exactly as it is — a pathetic, childish attempt at being insulting. Or, since you asked earlier, a perfect example of your consistently gratuitous “nasty and unpleasant.”

Ok, I read most of it. It’s a legit study but it has two issues that are significant to me and mean that verification is needed. One is that the two patient groups were quite different in some characteristics. For example the average age of patients not receiving chloroquine was 68 and the average of patients receiving chloroquine and/or Azithromycin was 63. This factor probably helped the chloroquine look better. There were other factors that differed that looked like they might help the un treated patients. It’s hard to tell how the balance of factors will work out. There quite a number of factors in the set of risk factors that had differences so the authors did a regression that used some measure of how much effect they expected each factor to have in order to try and correct for that. I think this is kind of perilous, particularly because of the second problem I see with the study. The second problem is that the authors did some sort of heart test and eliminated patients from the treatment groups if they were viewed as risks for the known heart related side effects of chloroquine and Azithromycin. This was a good thing in that it protected patients who would be vulnerable to heart problems. But, as near as I could tell, they didn’t rule anyone out of the control group (the ones not taking chloroquine or Azithromycin) for heart problems. This probably accounts for the control group being so much older than the treated groups. It has the net effect that the control group was sicker (They had heart problems) than the treated groups. If the control group had more problems to begin with it’s not surprising it had higher mortality than the treated group. So as I said, verification is needed.

“Bob, I’m pretty sure that not one of us owns a university. In fact, the only person I can think of who did own one ran it as a scam until it went bankrupt. Who was that guy again?
When you write stuff like that, it comes across exactly as it is — a pathetic, childish attempt at being insulting. Or, since you asked earlier, a perfect example of your consistently gratuitous “nasty and unpleasant.””

No…. it stating that most of you (most) grew up within a particular echo chamber and have chosen to live in a place that is far left of center so it all seems so natural to you. The is a big “rest of the country ” out there.

Also, this article on how home field advantage disappears without fans in soccer is really fun.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/sports/soccer/soccer-without-fans-germany-data.amp.html

I’ve often wondered how much the officials get unnerved by the home town environment.

Jeez Bob, I though you of all people could take a joke, especially a fecal one.

But honestly, no one here is changing anyone’s mind about politics, so shouldn’t we just stick to discussing Grant Riller’s ceiling or Mitch’s trade value (God forbid).

bobneptune: I hope at some time the country is partitioned and you fellas can live your lives comfortably in unanimity and guys like me can live the way I’d like. You guys have your belief system and guys like me have ours. I don’t want to ram my ideas down your throat and I don’t want yours rammed down mine.

A modern day secessionist? How quaint!

thought about you on my walk bob (ma lives close by some nice trails, which have sadly become crazy popular over the last decade or so)…

how come you never talk more about gambling…truth is, your personality is hard to deny, you seem very comfortable – being you…not a bad thing at all…you’re sharp enough to know how to get people to engage…I imagine there’s much less “thrill” though in avoiding friction…that static energy though of forces rubbing against one another, hard to deny…

losing makes me feel way worse than winning feels good (steady philosophy for underachieving in life)…but gambling is interesting: data, figuring people out in cards, playing hunches/feelings…

you know what would really be interesting – you have me by about a decade – how in the world are you able to manage keeping up with two toddlers?

just thinking of that seems daunting…

arguing politics (for the thrill of competition) is even more dull than arguing about god…

you ain’t changing no-bodies opinion, and there’s only so much to be said, it gets a bit repetitive…

tell us a story…an original story…

***No…. it stating that most of you (most) grew up within a particular echo chamber and have chosen to live in a place that is far left of center so it all seems so natural to you.***

I told you, both my parents are Republicans. I grew up surrounded by Republican office holders, from clerks, to judges, to governors, to presidents. I’ve experienced the Fox News bubble. I broke out. So did my sister. And, I’m happy to say, so have my parents, who, thanks to Trump and the fools that defend and support him, are now ashamed of their party.

The culture war in this country is fabricated, and it’s fabricated by the far ends of the spectrum on both sides. You have bought into the right’s version, and it’s sad, because unlike the others that have eaten that shit up, you can quote Shakespeare.

how come you never talk more about gambling

There are few things more boring than old gambling stories, but I’ve got a few doozies 🙂

***There are few things more boring than old gambling stories***

Thank you for suddenly caring about what bores the readership of Knickerblogger, Bob!

This is complete gibberish. How does Elizabeth Warren dropping out of the race help Joe Biden win? That makes zero sense. i mean, duh, her voters are mostly gonna go to Bernie Sanders, which helps… guess who… Bernie Sanders.

Once Biden dominated in South Carolina, he was clearly going to be the candidate, but it’s fair to note that the “establishment” likely decided, “Everyone, look, Biden is clearly going to be the candidate now, the only question is whether he will win outright or whether he will have to win it at a contested convention – where he would win it,” so the “Establishment” did then get Mayor Pete and Klobuchar to drop out to make sure that the inevitable would be achieved without a contested convention.

Again, that was only possible because it was evident from the results in South Carolina, where the African-American voted for Klobuchar in minuscule numbers and probably somehow in negative numbers for Mayor Pete, that neither of those two had a chance going forward, so why cause a contested convention for no reason? So that was involvement by the “Establishment.” It didn’t “decide the election,” though, as it was clearly the African-American voters who made it evident that they weren’t interested in anyone other than Biden. The consolidation just made it easier to avoid a disruptive contested convention (it is important to note that Warren specifically didn’t drop out at first because she was willing to go to a contested convention and hope to make the case that she was the compromise candidate between Biden and Bernie, but then the next results made it clear that Biden was going to win outright, so there was no real point in her sticking around).

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-new-coalition-behind-joe-biden

Hmmmm…. that known right wing conspiritard rag The Newyorker doesn’t agree with you my friend!

After the George Floyd incident the crazies took over the “movement and is now engaged in erasing history. The out come of this will not be particularly good. IMO…..

It does seem like the left’s version of the tea party has gained a foothold and will only be gaining more strength. Biden as a Trojan Horse to a demented wing of idiots is a legitimate concern.

JK keeps trying to point out the presidential nomination results as proof that the party is moderate but I don’t agree that is a proper benchmark. The Tea Party never had a strong national candidate but their influence was still considerable.

On to more mundane topics…. who would have thought practicing in the epicenter of fulminating Coronavirus cases (2,046 in Miami Dade yesterday) would have been a bad idea?

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/miami-heat/fl-sp-miami-heat-covid-test-facility-shutdown-20200703-ubpv56kprfht5d7omi7qifgrcm-story.html

Ok, Bob.

On a completely different matter, it occurred to me that the Knicks might have added coaching candidates at the last minute for affirmative action reasons.

marc berman sniffing glue again…devin booker is now the next big star coming to town…because he was seen at Leon Rose’s son’s bar mitzvah…

Sanders had 100% name recognition, infinite amounts of small donor money and lots of infrastructure that had been built up from his 2016 campaign, and he managed about 27% of the vote and got stomped by a milquetoast moderate opponent with no money and a bare bones organization.

His diehard fans (and I know many) are demoralized and the smart ones know they took a big step backwards in 2020 and that they definitely overestimated the size and significance of their movement.

If you don’t think that Trump’s pledges to slash (corporate) taxes and positively gut federal agencies appealed to Tea Party voters, I’m not sure we’re talking about the same thing.

The youth vote is unreliable, and Sanders found that out the hard way. I’m not so sure he had a path to the nomination even if Gen Z decided to get off of their Chinese (TikTok) and Russian (FaceApp) surveillance aids for a minute to press a few buttons in a voting booth, but it sure didn’t help that so many kids stayed home on Super Tuesday.

amen

and mitchell robinson for VP!

Z-man:
The coalescence behind Biden was clearly urged by the party establishment. But what of it? That’s what political parties do.

Let’s examine what went on during and in the aftermath of the Republican primary in 2016. Just about every candidate called Trump the scum of the earth and warned that he would be a disaster for the Republicans. 95% of those folks are now kissing and nibbling on his morally bankrupt ass. The moral outrage and disgust they expressed (not to mention the general “family values” horseshit the platform embraces) has been replaced by lockstep obedience and a self-serving obsequiousness that is generally reserved for banana republic dictators. The Republican Party establishment is all in on this radical right-wing nut job (who really couldn’t give two shits about any of them and will turn on them soon enough.) If Trump loses in a landslide and the Republicans lose the Senate, House, and possibly the Supreme Court over the next 8 years, especially as the demographics of the country continue to shift in ways that benefit the Dems, how can anyone in their right mind question why the Dem establishment pressured failing candidates to rally around Biden?

bob and Trump are just whining that Warren didn’t drop out in time to make Bernie more competitive on Super Tuesday, while Amy and Mayor Pete did. It was a brilliant play bu the DNC, and no amount of spin can undo its impact or split the Dems in their mission to get this asshole out of office. Whatever Joe has lost, he still has enough to look like a savior to enough Hillary haters to rid this country of the putrid stench of Trump’s tens of thousands of lies and Nazi tactics. Who the fuck cares if Biden is president for one day or eight years?

Well said. FWIW, I don’t see Trump losing in an electoral landslide. He’s still gonna carry quite a few states, inc. the one I live in…

Warren was my first choice — she is the most competent and comprehensive re: policy, and her mixed-economy approach matches my own personal politics — and Sanders was my #2, based on his popular support and desire for actual structural change. That said, I will vote for Biden any day of the week. Chomsky was right in 2016 and he’s right in 2020. I would vote for Marianne Williamson. I would vote for John Kasich (if he were the Dem nominee somehow). I would vote for Mitt Romney.

I do know a couple real-life Bernie Bros (a vocal minority if there ever was one) and their conflation of Biden and Trump is downright maddening. It really is “taking my ball and going home,” except they haven’t bothered to check if they’re even holding anything.

Another huge problem with the study Bob cited, 36% in the neither med group were given steroids compared to 79% in the HCQ group. 39% in the azithro only group compared to 74% in the HCQ+azithro. There’s a very good randomized control trial (Recovery Trial) that indicates dexamethasone decreases mortality, especially in the sickest patients. That and the age difference could easily account for the mortality differences in the study Bob cited. This is why RCTs are crucial and when you already have evidence in the form of an RCT that HCQ doesn’t work a study like this doesn’t move the needle much. The groups were just too different.

Look Bob, if HCQ turned out to be useful I would be as happy as anyone. Evaluating these studies I really do try to check my bias, going in knowing it Irks me that the president recklessly touted something with little evidence behind it. But the evidence for HCQ remains lacking, and your reveling in this study is misplaced, unfortunately.

***Warren was my first choice — she is the most competent and comprehensive re: policy, and her mixed-economy approach matches my own personal politics — and Sanders was my #2, based on his popular support and desire for actual structural change. That said, I will vote for Biden any day of the week. Chomsky was right in 2016 and he’s right in 2020. I would vote for Marianne Williamson. I would vote for John Kasich (if he were the Dem nominee somehow). I would vote for Mitt Romney.***

I could have written this entire paragraph, word for word, about myself.

And the beat goes on, the beat goes on
Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain
La de da de de, la de da de da

I don’t know, I guess if you mixed enough sex, drugs, alcohol and rock & roll in to it, politics could, sort of, slightly be interesting…

at least donald doesn’t deviate from his message…more crazy talk at rushmore…no matter what though, at least a third of the folks whom will vote in november are gonna be down for his dirt drawers, no matter what…

I’m not that familiar with george wallace…from what I do know, seems like a fitting ending for the trump epilogue…

They had a theory of winning that was based not just on strong youth turnout, but on a paradigm-shifting tsunami of youth turnout. It didn’t come close to materializing, and it was foolish to believe that it was going to materialize. It was outright delusional, as a matter of fact.

Early on, when the argument was that Sanders was doing better in theoretical matchups with Trump, it was based on an absurd degree of youth turnout. Basically, as you note, effectively a tsunami of new young and independent voters voting who never voted before. This was clearly present in the polls. It said Sanders would lose, like, 5% of the moderate Dems but would add, like, 9% from young voters and indie voters who otherwise would not vote, so Sanders ended up with better theoretical numbers than Biden.

However, just looking at the numbers, it seemed absurd. For it to work, he had to have historical turnout from people who don’t vote! And sure enough, when the primaries came about, the young voters came out in greater force than normal (Sanders did have a nice turnout from young voters, don’t let people act like the young people didn’t vote. They did), but he needed a tsunami and he obviously didn’t get it. Because, well, obviously, asking for a historically high turnout as the basis for your winning strategy is not a good idea.

Sanders became instantly more electable a week after Super Tuesday, when a global crisis led both parties to embrace socialism. (Which is, I guess, why Breitbart News rebranded it “Marxism”)

I dunno, Sanders was not popular with 60% of Dems and 90% of Reps. My guess is that many Trump haters would think of Trump as the lesser of two evils. The word socialism still terrifies non-progressives. No way he’d be at the level that Biden is right now.

Brian Cronin:
I agree Biden is doing better than Sanders would be doing if he were the candidate, but Sanders would still be well ahead of Trump. A half-eaten bologna sandwich would be polling ahead of Trump right now.

Fair enough, but there’s still more than ample reason as a liberal/Democrat to be happier that Biden is the nominee. He has a far better chance of winning.

The word socialism still terrifies non-progressives.

Ehhh, it’s lost its punch. Tends to happen when conservative media has labeled every prominent dem pol as a socialist since Al Gore. That’s why they’re getting nutty with the marxism labels now.

Why don’t we be honest about hydroxychloroquine?

The French doctor that originally published some data hinting it might be useful spelled out some very specific dosages and timings for when and how to use it to get his results. His paper had many statistical flaws and needed to be evaluated further, but given testimony by others that said they were seeing positive results also, it was studying.

Since then practically every study has looked at different dosages, different or incomplete drug combinations, and given it to patients at stages of the illness that were different than those prescribed by the French doctor and others that claimed success with various combinations including zinc.

I don’t know damn thing about medicine.

However, if someone is telling you the exact dosage, drug combination, and timing of treatment that is working for him and you are doing all sorts of things that don’t match his recommendations you are either being an idiot, trying to prove it doesn’t work, or best case testing other possibilities. The latter is fine, but then if these other tests don’t work you don’t get to refute what the doctor is saying,

Most likely this drug is not particularly effective at all, but the TRUTH is it was politicized by certain people that imo are fucking scumbags that hate Trump more than they are hoping the drug actually helps.

That IS the truth!!! .

Just study it correctly. Don’t use every opportunity no matter how different and flawed the study has been to trash the drug because Trump pushed it. #MediaScumbags

Deeefense, how do you feel about primary sources?

The pandemic is the best thing that happened to the Democrats’ chance of winning because it exposes Trump as an incompetent fool who is only capable of thinking about his own re-election chances and could give one flying fuck about protecting Americans. If Trump had handled it with even a faint modicum of competence he’d be cruising to re-election but he’s Donald Trump so that was never on the table.

Seniors bailed on him because they know they’re being asked to either never leave the houses again or to just literally drop dead. He gets HORRENDOUS marks for his handling of the virus. He’s the Phil Jackson of pandemic management.

I like how when Joe Biden makes a gaff he has senility, but when Trump, oh, I don’t know, praises scientists for coming up with an AIDS vaccine, or says that Frederick Douglas is still alive, or states multiple times that his Bronx-born father was born in Germany, or says “I didn’t say Mexico would pay for the wall”, or puts his cognitive deficiencies on full display with statements like “In another sense, I tested positively toward negative, right? So no. I tested perfectly this morning, meaning I tested negative. But that’s a way of saying it. Positively toward the negative”, we are supposed to, as virtually every republican on television has said at one point or another: “pay attention to his actions, not his words.”

Fair enough, but there’s still more than ample reason as a liberal/Democrat to be happier that Biden is the nominee. He has a far better chance of winning.

Oh, totally agreed. It’s just funny in retrospect, like how it turned out that Clinton would have easily won in 2008 (despite Obama having the better chance of winning).

The main thing is, who is actually NOT going to vote for Biden because they think he’s senile? Clearly this is a referendum on Trump. No one who’s vote is decided right now really cares about Biden’s mental state, and I doubt that anyone still on the fence makes a decision based on that. Things that matter now are the economy, COVID, health care, and police reform. Maybe immigration. Maybe foreign policy. His vice presidential choice is probably the only thing that is connected to perceptions about Joe’s age and mental fitness. Clearly, it’s widely assumed that Joe will not serve 8 years and that if he’s elected, the VP has a strong chance of being president even before Biden finishes his first term. So picking someone who is at least as “teflon” as he is right now is critical. Duckworth might be a great strategic pick. Harris is far less risky than Warren. Rice, Demings and others all deserve strong consideration. But if he picks the right choice, I can’t see him losing any voters between now and November.

Saw on Twitter that today is the 10th anniversary of the Knicks signing Amare.

By itself, a terrible contract for an oft-injured player who was uninsurable but kicked off our best stretch of seasons in the last 2 decades.

Without STAT we don’t get Melo or Chandler and we don’t put together that one magical season we were actually good.

The first half a season with him was incredibly exciting with Amare leading the kids and looking like an MVP candidate briefly.

Thoughts about Amare signing 10 years later?

Yeah, sorry. To be clear, I have no clue why anyone would think that buying energy junk bonds is a better idea than lowering the poverty rate with direct transfers to the most vulnerable. I apologize if anyone thought I was endorsing corporate welfare. I thought it was clear I was not but I have learned over the years I am often not clear. It’s terrible.

you were clear. i doubt i have single ally on this board in the great venn diagram of politics, monetary macro and whether charlie ward was a better nba player than allan houston. i don’t think think the pmccf & smccf are usefully thought of as corporate welfare or socialism any more than nba basket height should be thought of as dwarf bigotry. but i am with you and then some on the demagogue.

Saw on Twitter that today is the 10th anniversary of the Knicks signing Amare.

By itself, a terrible contract for an oft-injured player who was uninsurable but kicked off our best stretch of seasons in the last 2 decades.

Without STAT we don’t get Melo or Chandler and we don’t put together that one magical season we were actually good.

The first half a season with him was incredibly exciting with Amare leading the kids and looking like an MVP candidate briefly.

Thoughts about Amare signing 10 years later?

This is purely theoretical, because the truth was that there was no scenario where the Knicks weren’t going to spend all of their free agency money that season. That said, let’s say the Knicks just don’t sign STAT or any other big name player period that offseason. Let’s say they then decide not to trade for Melo because they’re not in a “win now” position without STAT.

Tyson Chandler and Chris Paul were buddies and Paul was traded before the following season (he was traded a week after Chandler signed with the Knicks). So let’s say the Knicks trade, I dunno, Gallo, Mozgov and a first round pick for Paul (that’s roughly equal to the Clippers trade). The Knicks then sign Chandler. They still have a bunch of cap space left.

Are they better off than what they actually had?

donnie’s got me thinking about what it might be like to grow up in a family where politics is a profession…

seems like most folks in that business are pretty passionate about it…I would imagine a very outgoing and social upbringing…

I hid in my room a lot 🙂

getting ready to hit the trails again…again thinking of donnie – running similiar trails probably not so far from here (gonna be around the day creek channel, it’s cool to be around older homesteads/settlement areas, should be less folks around than the trail going to the waterfall area)…I’m okay traversing flat terrain, the steep inclines with rocks is a bit challenging though, my hips are still sore from friday…I’ve always liked being out in the heat…just wish I didn’t let myself get this out of shape…

hopefully folks can keep slipping in some tales of fitness to help motivate and inspire…

“I don’t think think the pmccf & smccf are usefully thought of as corporate welfare or socialism any more than nba basket height should be thought of as dwarf bigotry.”

Going to sleep on this koan.

All you can derive from this is that WWW/Rose had no interest in doing what was right for the Knicks…and honestly, why should they? However, If they now can do as well for the Knicks as they did for even their scrubbiest clients like Bargnani, we’re probably in good hands.

I don’t know. I get that idea. I just don’t have a good feeling about it. But I do like some of the hires so let’s see.

There are a million reasons to be skeptical about Rose and WWW. I just don’t think their history of screwing the Knicks is one of them. Their future reputations are now going to be tied to their success or failure in this job. It’s no secret how badly Phil’s reputation was hurt by being comically inept as Knicks POBO.

Agents are the ultimate pragmatists. It seems ludicrous that Rose would transition to the Knicks’ FO just for money, considering that he probably made just as much as an agent and didn’t have to worry about being hung out to dry in the tabloids and being a laughing stock. I guess that you can worry that they will be too predisposed to players that they won’t play hardball. But I don’t think they will get all that sentimental about what’s best for the player. If anything, their gravitas might work well in negotiating, as they might have a good sense of what a particular player might be worth.

Say what you want about William Wesley, but according to the Forbes article written by Alex French, he turned Leon Rose into the biggest agent in the NBA in a year. Check this tweet out and listen to the podcast episode if you can. After listening to what Macri and French had to say about World Wide Wes, I’m becoming more and more convinced that we’re vastly underrating how important William Wesley is in NBA circles.

https://twitter.com/JCMacriNBA/status/1279427784847380480

I’d like to see a list of all of Rose’s clients, but to be the guy who represented Allen Iverson, Richard Hamilton, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Karl Anthony Towns, Joel Embiid, Devin Booker, Chris Paul, and Victor Oladipo all because of William Wesley? Signing guys to an agency is definitely way different than actually building a team, but I get the sense that the front office guys like Perrin, Perry, Aller, Zanin, and to a lesser extent Alex Kline will be doing most of the drafting and roster construction while Wes and Rose organize for Joel Embiid and Devin Booker to team up with LaMelo Ball and RJ Barrett. This could all turn out to be another very shitty era in Knicks basketball, but William Wesley and Leon Rose seem like smart enough guys that they wouldn’t come here if they didn’t have a real plan.

***There are a million reasons to be skeptical about Rose and WWW. I just don’t think their history of screwing the Knicks is one of them. ***

I know it’s the honeymoon period, and we don’t want to fail a guy before he’s even taken his first test, but screwing the Knicks was NOT Rose’s job. Especially with regard to Bargnani, who already had his contract. Rose orchestrated that trade to put Bargnani in the situation that he thought would be best for him, and it was in his and his client’s significant interest for the Knicks to succeed. If he knew that trade would be an epic bust for the Knicks, then he’s a shitty agent. As an agent, he gained nothing from the draft pick that went to Toronto, and he gained nothing from Dolan eating $11,000,000 in luxury tax. His only interest in the trade was putting his client in a place he could succeed, and he didn’t. Which doesn’t bode well for his ability to build a successful team as a POBO.

I’m sure we can all agree that predicting the next two or three years with any confidence is a fool’s errand. Until we see what they do with cap space, we have no clue. This isn’t exactly a “will Thibodeau play his starters 42 MPG in December” question.

Donnie Walsh: Yes, but as soon as his client became a part of the “better team”, the Knicks won 37 games and the Raptors won 48 games. It didn’t show great foresight on the part of Rose. Again, it was in his interests for that trade to work out for his client. He didn’t do it to “screw the Knicks”.

So what was Rose supposed to do? Or not do? Did he need conclude that client sucked and would suck no matter what his situation? Is that what agents do? Maybe thought that Bargnani would be better on the Knicks, i.e on a veteran team where he had a diminished role. Was Rose supposed to talk the Knicks out of trading for him?

I don’t get how anyone could conclude that Rose did anything wrong, or should have given a fuck about the Knicks making a colossally stupid trade for his client. Responsibility for that trade is 100% on the Knicks. Bargnani’s failures are 100% on him. Rose did his job.

A lot of assumptions in this thread.

Possible reasons to advocate for the trade to NY:

1) New York is a bigger market
2) NYK committed to significant playing time during trade talks
3) NYK was a better team than TOR the prior year
4) the belief that NYK offered “better synergy” than TOR
5) Bargnani preferred to live in NYC
6) TOR decommitted on Bargnani’s 2013-14 playing time before or during trade talks
7) (added Z-man’s, which I find totally implausible) taking on a diminished role to improve production — no agent is going to advocate for this, as playing time/PPG is still a driver of contract size, especially for younger players

I don’t think we know which of these was even a factor, to say nothing of their individual weight on the decision. And although we on KB read the tea leaves that the 48.5 O/U line on the 2013-14 Knicks’ season was hilariously off base, I think it would have been risky to disengage in trade talks on the belief that they would be quite as bad as they ended up being.

In order jump start an actual basketball discussion about Charlie Ward, I compared him to Ntilikina. It was actually pretty hard to do a fair comparison because Ntilikina entered the league at 19, but Ward didn’t enter until he was 24. Ward’s first season he played less than a hundred minutes and had much worse stats than Ntilikina’s most recent (21 year old) season. Ward’s second season, when he was twenty five, was slightly better than Frank last year, but not by much.

Honestly, I expected Frank to do worse in the comparison. Given that he should improve over the next three years (because of his age) he’s likely to be at least as good as Ward in a year or two.

I disagree with you on this. Rose would have to be incredibly stupid to assume that Bargnani would have a bigger role on a team with Melo and Amare (regardless of the truth, indications were that he would recover during the off-season; no one talked about Bargnani as a replacement for Amare.) It was nearly certain that, barring injury, his role would be a third option on offense and possibly coming off the bench.

Except Amar’e was already a full-on bench player by this point, not having started a single game during the 2012-13 season, and wouldn’t even start a game until February 2014. Bargnani started 39 of 42 games and an inexplicable 22 of 29 in the following season. So you think this was just a fluke? That it was implied that he would be a bench player, with the Knicks giving up three draft picks, including a 2016 first, but then went on to be a starter by accident, even though Amar’e was healthy early in the season?

You’re saying that it would have been implausible to believe what actually happened would happen. Kinda tenuous position, don’t you think?

As to #2, this seems ridiculous. The Knicks would commit to playing time? They were giving up assets and taking on a big contract. Why would a team do that if playing time was in question? Of course he was going to play.

I have no idea what you’re trying to argue right now. I offered #2 as one of an intended-to-be-exhaustive list of reasons that Bargnani’s team (or any agent representing any player) could advocate for a trade to NYK (or any team) — and it’s… ridiculous?

I mean, it may be stating the obvious to say that a player might advocate for a trade based on a promise of significant playing time, but then you say that Bargnani should have had no expectations of even being a starter, despite the Knicks giving up big draft assets for him? (Which Bargnani likely would not have found out until after trade talks had come to a close, as though the Knicks are going to be up front about what they want to give up for him in a trade? Huh?)

It sounds like the trade market on Bargnani fell through after his re-injury in 2013 — from Bryan Colangelo’s own mouth — and the Knicks paid top-dollar for a scrub, while offering him significant playing time, if not a starter’s role, in the following season.

Really not sure what your point is.

For emphasis–

vincoug: RIP Ennio Morricone who died overnight. Arguably/probably the greatest film composer of all time

Bernard Herrmann sez “Hi!”

Some grist for the basketball mill: A draft analyst I like quite a bit published his mock a few weeks ago (no idea why he has Knicks at #1 but ignore that), you can find it here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WVHKWIHbnw10sDgdU6cPuUI2WqCXGGoueU-gjAO3Dg4/edit

His top 10 are:
1. LaMelo
2. Killian
3. Okongwu
4. Ant-Man
5. Deni
6. Vassell
7. Pokusevski
8. Okoro
9. Hali
10. Cole

My list is pretty similar nowadays, with Hali higher, Cole lower, Pokusevski out, and Kira Lewis Jr. knocking on the top 10

You would think so, but when I compared his recent results th Ward’s first two years, the results were surprising

Well, I just compared his recent results with Ward’s first two years and the results were that Ward’s were markedly better across the board such that I truly have no idea where you’re going with this one.

Some grist for the basketball mill: A draft analyst I like quite a bit published his mock a few weeks ago (no idea why he has Knicks at #1 but ignore that), you can find it here:

I like Cosmis too. That note on McDaniels is just, ugh, definitely true 🙁

Ok so here is a link and some numbers. The first number is Frank last season and the second is Ward’s second season.

Mpg: 20.8, 12.7
FG%: .393, .399
3P%: .321, .333
EFG: .459,.475
FT: .864, .685
AST: 3.0, 2.2
AST/36min: 5.2, 6.0
Pts/36min: 10.8, 11.2
Usage: 15.4, 19.0
TS%: .497, .505

Most of the numbers favor Ward, but only by a small amount, and this is his age 25 season compared to Ntilikina’s age 21 season.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.fcgi?request=1&sum=0&player_id1_hint=Charlie+Ward&player_id1_select=Charlie+Ward&player_id1=wardch01&y1=1996&player_id2_hint=Frank+Ntilikina&player_id2_select=Frank+Ntilikina&player_id2=ntilila01&y2=2020

But Frank has played 3 seasons so why are we not comparing him to Ward’s first 3 seasons why only his first 2 especially since Ward only played 10 games and 44 mins in his rookie season?

If you look at Ward’s 2nd thru 4th seasons it’s no comparison, Ward in his 4th season started all 82 games with a 57% TS% and he lead the NBA in defensive box plus/minus. Frank is gonna have to make one helluva jump next season (his 4th) to match Ward’s 4th season.

Ward was an odd prospect considering his age as a rookie and obviously his career as a Heisman winning college football QB. I was not a fan of his at all in his first couple of seasons as the backup PG cause he was an awful shooter and basically started the brawl with the Heat that ended their chances in the playoffs. I did not agree with JVG naming him the starting PG for the 97-98 season with Childs coming off the bench but Ward made an incredible leap that season and became a very good 3pt shooter for the rest of his career. I will always respect Ward for how much he improved as a player during his career even if his public religious beliefs were cringe worthy. But all power to Ward for improving and becoming a solid NBA player for the majority of his career, not bad for a late 1st rd pick.

I think Ward is a good upside comp for Frank, who is still younger than lots of guys being drafted this year. The issue with Frank is that he has been a huge net negative for his entire rookie deal, and it is extremely unlikely that he becomes worth what he is getting paid next year. His overall production can likely be replaced by a minimum salary journeyman like Kadeem Allen or Trey Burke for the next 2-3. The odds of him being part of the long term picture are very slim right now. Unless he has a breakout season next year, he will have been a complete waste of a lottery pick. But yeah, he has a chance to be something like a Charlie Ward-level player in his mid-20’s.

Someone says “let’s talk about Ward v Houston” and y’all make it about Frank.

There’s no reason to compare Ward and Houston, they are completely different players in pretty much every regard except being born-agains.

“Someone says “let’s talk about Ward v Houston” and y’all make it about Frank.”

Ha, problem is any SG will not look as good when being compared to even a decent PG like Ward. Especially a SG like Houston whose entire profile was based on scoring with decent efficiency especially for the era he played in. Both Brian and I have mentioned how much better Houston would have been if he played in today’s NBA where he would’ve presumably taken a bunch more 3pters and been able to get to the FT line alot more. Houston was an excellent 3pt/FT shooter who just didn’t take enough of both, heck in the seasons where he did up his 3pt and FT rate his %’s were even better. Career 40% from 3pt and 86% from the FT line, not too shabby.

Ok so here is a link and some numbers. The first number is Frank last season and the second is Ward’s second season.

Mpg: 20.8, 12.7
FG%: .393, .399
3P%: .321, .333
EFG: .459,.475
FT: .864, .685
AST: 3.0, 2.2
AST/36min: 5.2, 6.0
Pts/36min: 10.8, 11.2
Usage: 15.4, 19.0
TS%: .497, .505

Most of the numbers favor Ward, but only by a small amount, and this is his age 25 season compared to Ntilikina’s age 21 season.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.fcgi?request=1&sum=0&player_id1_hint=Charlie+Ward&player_id1_select=Charlie+Ward&player_id1=wardch01&y1=1996&player_id2_hint=Frank+Ntilikina&player_id2_select=Frank+Ntilikina&player_id2=ntilila01&y2=2020 ”

Not only that but Charlie Wards ast/tov ratio was much worse than Frank’s (kinda the PG’s #1 job) and Frank’s FT% was 20% better

Add to that fact that Frank wasn’t orchestrating Ewing/Oakley/Mason/Starks and Charles Smith a bunch of seasoned pros who knew what they were doing on a basketball court.

Ward had the huge advantage in big spot maturity playing in the biggest spotlight (National Championship in NCAA/Heisman Trophy) while still logging 2700 minutes of college hoops. Interesting factoid…. Charlie ward was such a good athlete he was FSU’s punter as a freshman (37.1 yds/punt.)

And , of course Ward was 4 years older than Frank at the time of comparison.

Oh FFS, its a joke trying to compare Frank to Ward because Frank will never come close to being as good as Ward. Frank sucks and will always suck, this reaching for comparisons and looking for faint hope that Frank might become decent is tiresome.

“Oh FFS, its a joke trying to compare Frank to Ward because Frank will never come close to being as good as Ward. Frank sucks and will always suck, this reaching for comparisons and looking for faint hope that Frank might become decent is tiresome.”

We shall see in the fullness of time mighty swami…..

BigBlueAL: Frank sucks and will always suck, this reaching for comparisons and looking for faint hope that Frank might become decent is tiresome.

This is pretty bold, considering that Frank improved by nearly every metric last year and was getting better as the season went on. But I guess that at age 21 it’s a lock that he will always suck. OK.

I’m a sensitive soul, though I seem thick-skinned
And it hurt that my friends never stood downwind

yeppers, every little thing – is gonna be alright…

Nothing is funner than Frank debates 🙂

BigBlueAL: If Frank was on any other team not one person here would ever contemplate mentioning him as someone the Knicks should try to acquire. Frank’s contract status as the 8th overall pick makes it even worse.

That’s true about most 21 year olds. Alternatively, if this was Frank’s 21yo rookie year and he played exactly like he did, most here would be optimistic about him. He was a horrendous draft pick, but that’s besides the point. He was not one of the worst players in the NBA this year by any statistical measure. Just bad but improving and 21 years old.

okay then…figured out the ribs (came out perfecto)…letting my system clean up for a minute, but, planning on working some steaks on to the skillet later this week…

here we go then – any suggestions on how to put together some red (marinara) gravy???

got to leave garlic and onions alone…i prefer the sauce to be more on the sweet side…need to step up my culinary credibility…i just eat less these days, figure when i do eat, might as well put a little more effort in to it…

i know, i can just google it, but, i like how you all include the “why” things got to be a certain way…

the logical endpoint to this thread

Like for pizza or pasta?

I think Frank Ntilikina will be traded unless they hire Tom Thibodeau. Thibodeau will value Frank’s defense enough to want to keep him around for another year and try to turn him into a poor man’s version of Jimmy Butler over time. Butler made it to the NBA at 22 and couldn’t shoot for shit from outside when he finally got there. What he had was an enormous work ethic and desire to get better (like Frank). He also the ability to get to the basket and FT line way better than Frank. If Thibodeau is crazy enough to come to NY, it will be interesting to see whether he prioritizes getting to the basket and the FT line or 3 point shooting as the area of improvement he’s looking for in year 1 from Frank.

OMFG now Frank is being compared to Jimmy Butler….

Apres la pluie le beau temps

To be fair to Strat, he didn’t say that Frank was going to become Jimmy Butler. He said that a defensive-oriented coach would value Frank’s skillset and be more likely to value and play him. Let’s be fair here.

In terms of improvement, Franks TS% improved by .080, his WS48 improved by .082, and his BPM by 2.8. He improved his shooting % from 2, 3, and the line. He shot 48% on corner 3’s. He still has a long way to go but the improvement is meaningful in light of his age.

horny, rambis, fiz, and a little bit of miller time…it’s funny – the biggest leap yet seems to be when he played for collet over in france last summer…

GoNYGoNYGo – Ready for 2020 Knicks 2.0: I compared them because:
1) They were both drafted by the Knicks
2) Ariza was drafted in the 2nd round
3) Never was an all-star
4) Didn’t become a starter until his 6th season.

If Ntilikina can’t match up with that, then he’s an absolute bust.

Another thing that got me to post the comparison is that you posted this apology for Frank:

Apology> Get real, GoGo. No one was harder on Frank at draft time and beyond than I was, and I agree that in terms of where and when we drafted him, he is an unmitigated bust (as I predicted, btw.). But it’s waaaaay to early to write him off as becoming a potentially productive NBA player at some point after his rookie contract. I mean, how arbitrary is it to say “If his progression doesn’t match up with Ariza’s, he’s a bust?!” I seriously don’t get why it seems unreasonable to say that he simply wasn’t ready for the NBA at age 19-21, which is true for lots of guys who eventually become good players. The fact is that he DID improve (is there any disputing that?) and if he makes the same statistical improvement next year as he did this year, he’s a legit rotation player. Even if he only improves somewhat (say, WS48=.070, BPM=0.2) , he’ll still be only 22. That’s how old Obi Toppin is right now.

Z-man, that’s why I compared him to Ariza. They were the same exact age coming out and I compared their 3 years. It’s very close to the time where Frank gets written off. We disagree about how much he needs to improve to have any real value. Ariza was far ahead of Ntilikina at the same exact point in life and NBA experience. Ariza needed to improve massively from that to become a starter 3 years later. I cannot see him ever being an NBA starter and have a hard time with him even being a rotation option.

GoGo, Ariza was already an average NBA player or above from age 20-23 (his WS48 was .100 or more with both ORL and LAL.) He played a swing-forward position where he was able to be impactful on sheer athleticism. He didn’t really need to shoot or pass much, just play D, rebound, dunk and hit the uncontested corner 3. Frank is never going to be that kind of player, he’s not the elite athlete that Ariza was and couldn’t survive in an ultra low-usage role, but he’s a decent ball-handler, passer, and switchable defender. The one similarity is that Ariza’s game blossomed when he became reliable when left open from 3. That’s the big hurdle for Frank. If he keeps shooting 3’s at 30-32%, he’ll be out of the league soon. But there’s no reason to believe that he won’t improve his 3-pt shooting. He was the best FT shooter on the team last year at 86%.

It’s crazy how many lottery picks we’ve fucked up. Frank, Knox, Jordan Hill, Frye, Sweetney…

Only good one was Gallo and a freakishly tall guy who shoots three pointers at an average rate.

I guess the jury’s still out on RJ.

“They name teams out of STRENGTH, not weakness, but now the Washington Redskins & Cleveland Indians, two fabled sports franchises, look like they are going to be changing their names in order to be politically correct. Indians like Elizabeth Warren, must be very angry right now!”

Sorry, Mr. President, but they name teams out of strength AND/OR out of wanting to immortalize a fashion trend that looked like baggy capri’s.

I wonder how evangelicals who are in love with Trump are interpreting the COVID-19 pandemic…

I make a new batch as soon as I’m low.

🙂

yeah, just need to add a little more discipline to my cooking…

just reading what you all write and watching endless cooking shows at moms, I wanna step up my game a bit…

I wanna beat bobby flay…

Perhaps to change our luck we should appeal to Father Knickerbocker and change our logo to a Father Knickerbocker logo like the Celtics have their Leprechaun logo

The New York Knickerbockers is probably the best team name in American sports. We should turn back the clock and embrace its history.

Bob, I think you mean “sex worker”…

The Frank discussion will be over soon unless Tom Thibodeau is named coach. He’s the only coach I can see wanting to keep him because he’d have a role with Thibodeau. He’d be asked to play deeefense. lmao I know drafting players that can play deeefense like Frank and Porzingis is typically a novel idea in NY, but I think TT will move back in that direction and work with Frank to continue developing his offense.

Knickerbocker is a dumb name and sort of has the opposite problem of the Cleveland Indians. It’s essentially calling the team the New York “New Yorkers” but specifically referring to the city’s European settlers aka the colonizers.

ess-dog: Knickerbocker is a dumb name and sort of has the opposite problem of the Cleveland Indians. It’s essentially calling the team the New York “New Yorkers” but specifically referring to the city’s European settlers aka the colonizers.

I dunno, seems perfectly appropriate for the city with the most segregated school system in the country…

ess-dog: It’s essentially calling the team the New York “New Yorkers” but specifically referring to the city’s European settlers aka the colonizers.

Are you implying there is something wrong with that, too?

the Knicks ditched Trier and kept Frank. So much for the valuing offense over defense theory…

Unless Trier has personal problems we are unaware of (remember, one of the reasons he dropped in the draft was a couple of PED positives), it was a mistake to let Trier go. These idiots value offense over defense to an absurd extreme, then when the finally found a good offensive player they let him go. lmao

Z-man: You have a bullshit Phil-fellating answer for everything, why should this case be any different?

What is your problem?

IMO, Trier is a good prospect as a 6th man scorer off the bench. I would have kept him. The one exception would be a personal problem that we are unaware of.

I don’t see anything too controversial about that.

They are constantly looking for scorers. They found a pretty good one. They let him go. lmao

“Z-man: You have a bullshit Phil-fellating”

Alliteration abounds on Knickerblogger 🙂

“Are you implying there is something wrong with that, too?”

C’mon Hubert…. you know those white Europeans who constructed the most fair society in 244 years that in no particular order: brought billions out of poverty, revolutionized agriculture to feed billions, brought two world wars to conclusion, ignited the technology boom, etc, etc. Yeah…. those cocksuckers.

bobneptune: No I meant hooker…. I never in my life ever heard anyone say, “Hey…. let’s go find the nearest ‘sex worker’ and
#!??%& (enter your favorite sex act) the bleep out of them!”

Funny, I never associated with anyone who said the above with either descriptive noun. But thanks for reaffirming that you are a dirtbag of the lowest order.

Deeefense, what’s your opinion on Phil Jackson?

“I mean, this is hilarious. So they get credit for eventually ending wars that they themselves started?”

I was talking about the descendants of those evil Europeans, the Amerikans. I’m also pretty sure Japan was the only country to actually seriously bomb Amerika in 1941

bobneptune: C’mon Hubert…. you know those white Europeans who constructed the most fair society in 244 years that in no particular order: brought billions out of poverty, revolutionized agriculture to feed billions, brought two world wars to conclusion, ignited the technology boom, etc, etc. Yeah…. those cocksuckers.

Yup, bob, those Europeans, you have to really hand it to them. Such a glorious history, full of defending individual liberty and championing the causes of the common man and woman. I’m sure you’re especially impressed with that 30’s-40’s Austrian/German guy who had that German economy running like clockwork!

bobneptune:
“I mean, this is hilarious. So they get credit for eventually ending wars that they themselves started?”

I was talking about the descendants of those evil Europeans, the Amerikans. I’m also pretty sure Japan was the only country to actually seriously bomb Amerika in 1941

That’s true…except if you’re from the country of Black Amerika. (Obviously you are pining for an Afrikaner-type partition here…no one is that bad of a speller.)

Preserving the “heritage” of the Confederate flag and the name Washington Redskins. What a great, great man.

Let’s get Amos and Andy back on the air and do a reboot of Birth Of A Nation starring Jon Voight and Scott Baio while we’re at it.

the greec khorus is europian doh

i think the real big question for the day though is – go with the marinara or meat (bolognese) sauce…such weighty life choices…

Yes, the fabled Cleveland Indians. Who can forget the heroics of Duane Kuiper and Brook Jacoby? The unforgettable managerial run of Jeff Torborg?
The glorious 70-win seasons at Cleveland Municipal Stadium? It’s less like real life and more like a wonderful fable.

This was one of the funnier parts of that tweet. There’s a whole series of well-known movies all about how they are very much not a fabled franchise!

My bolognese is 2 parts beef and pork each, 1 part chopped mortadella and pancetta each; diced onion, minced carrot and celery; a can of whole peeled San Marzanos chopped up; a cup of pinot or another medium-bodied wine to deglaze with the tomatoes. You shouldn’t need much olive oil or butter after the meats render. Saute the mirepoix after that. Add a little heavy cream at the end to really send it. Simmer for as long as you want. Four hours sounds about right.

Really good as a layer in lasagna. Despite my wife’s high caloric needs, she doesn’t allow too much red meat, so this is a special treat kinda thing.

Hubert: Z-Man, we were talking about the Europeans who colonized America and founded our country.

Violence inherent in the system! Violence inherent in the system!

The Honorable Cock Jowles: Hell yeah, here comes “to the smallpox-resistant goes the spoils, get over it” Hubert. Tuesday’s gonna be LIT.

Nah… but if you scrutinized the history of the Initial Coalescent and Middle Missouri variants, as well as the more well known Algonquin nation, with the same fervor you scrutinize your own history… I think you’d find these were some miserable cunts guilty of everything the european colonizers did… and then some.

Look, at the end of the day, no group is perfect and any symbol associated with pretty much any group is subject to historical criticism, especially if you stretch the truth beyond recognition. If the point is that the term Knickerbocker is inherently racist, I’m not on board with that. But let’s not gloss over the history of our Eurocentric culture in defense of a team name, especially as a thinly-veiled defense of Mr. MAGA’s racist rhetoric.

geo: 1 part chopped mortadella and pancetta each

i’m pretty sure i’ve never tasted either of these…we have one or two decent italian delis in town…i need to see what they have inside…

Mortadella is bologna with lumps of lard. Pancetta is essentially unsmoked/uncured bacon.

Hubert: It was only a matter of time til someone blamed the holocaust on Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, et al.

See, I thought it was only a matter of time before you made an absurdly dumb comment…and voila!

I mean, most team names are silly, confusing or outdated when you really break them down. “Celtics” is probably just as bad as Knickerbockers in that regard, but often the alternative is beyond mundane — like an owner naming their team after the weather (the Heat) so as not to offend anybody.

Seems like you can’t go wrong with a nice animal name. What about the New York Heifers?

ess-dog: “Celtics” is probably just as bad as Knickerbockers in that regard,

What is bad about Celtic and Knickerbocker?

I find mortadella a little weird. Not my favorite but I found it in a recipe some years back and loved how it worked with the other meats. Pancetta is glorious. geo, if you want something relatively simple, make spaghetti carbonara with big, thick-cut chunks of pancetta (assuming you can’t find guanciale). Along with cacio e pepe, it’s the king of adult mac-n-cheese.

As for this desire to make villains out of everyone in history

I feel like I’m arguing against S4E3 of The Sopranos right now.

The Honorable Cock Jowles: I feel like I’m arguing against S4E3 of The Sopranos right now.

That the Columbus Day episode? Easily the worst episode of the series. Nothing else is even close.

Clyde has said that, because “knicker” rhymes with a common racial slur that whites have hurled at blacks in this country to subjugate them despite their supposed emancipation, when he played, the fans would incorporate said word into their nickname, and that it made the players uncomfortable. So I don’t see any reason to be sentimental for some halcyon era where the name meant something important. To me, it’s not worth crusading over, but if somebody wanted to change it, i wouldn’t stop them. It’s a dumb sounding name anyway.

I hardly attribute that kind of behavior to the shorts that gave the franchise its name. There’s nothing about the name “Red Sox” that can be twisted into a racist epiphet, but Bostonians have done a superb job of making sure black players know where they stand in the New England hierarchy.

They are the Knicks, they will always be the Knicks.

#CanceltheShittiestNewJackPosterinRecentMemory

vincoug:
No one’s making villains out of everyone in history.We’re making villains out of people who currently use derogatory terms and images for their sports teams.

I was talking about the villainization – in this thread – of the Dutch settlers of New York, because ess-dog suggested that Knickerbocker was as bad as Indian.

It was Jowles who threw out a straw man argument about small pox… and then another one about the Sopranos.

Fuck that team in Washington. No one’s defending them.

“Z-man: Yup, bob, those Europeans, you have to really hand it to them. Such a glorious history, full of defending individual liberty and championing the causes of the common man and woman. I’m sure you’re especially impressed with that 30’s-40’s Austrian/German guy who had that German economy running like clockwork!”

Your interpretation of history couldn’t be more juvenile. I mean Jesus…. you make like everything bad was invented by White Europeans. Slavery was rampant on every continent. The Egyptians used conquered peoples as slaves 4000 years ago. Mansa Musa of Mali owned 10’s of thousands of slaves and notably took 12,000 slaves with him on his famous pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324. Native American tribes enslaved their conquered foes right here in North America.

Conquering peoples and driving them off their ancestral lands? How do you think the Lakota Sioux got “ownership” of the Black Hills of South Dakota? They murdered and drove the Cheyenne off THEIR ancestral lands in the 1700’s. The followers of Mohammed conquered and enslaved people from Afghanistan to Spain a thousand years before slavery in America.

War crimes/murder of innocents? The Imperial Japanese and Chinese under Mao were every bit as good at it as Hitler.

The only difference being the Europeans from Democritus of Abdera to Einstein developed physics. From Hippocratus to Harvey to Fleming perfected Medicine. From Locke to Jefferson/Madison/et al developed the system of democracy.

This combination of events pushed forward by those miserable white Europeans led to the emergence of billions out of poverty and into an area of greater individual freedom than any system anywhere else on the Earth.

“Clyde has said that, because “knicker” rhymes with a common racial slur that whites have hurled at blacks in this country to subjugate them despite their supposed emancipation, when he played, the fans would incorporate said word into their nickname, and that it made the players uncomfortable. So I don’t see any reason to be sentimental for some halcyon era where the name meant something important. To me, it’s not worth crusading over, but if somebody wanted to change it, i wouldn’t stop them. It’s a dumb sounding name anyway.”

First of all they are never called the Knickerbockers…99.999% of the time they are known as the “Knicks” and Knicks doesn’t remotely sound like the n-word. But you are telling me now that every word in English that ends in -er and has an “n” somewhere in it has to be expunged from the English language??? Really #cancelpasttense.

In this thread we learn the past tense is racist….. those sly DOG-WHISTLING white Europeans that invented the past tense! Off with their heads!

So bob is essentially saying “let’s turn a blind eye to any vestige of eurocentric institutional racism and not call into question whitewashed biographies of historical figures and symbols because all other ethnic groups have engaged in racism and genocide but euros came up with great inventions along the way. And it really makes us ignorant ol’ white guys uncomfortable when you rip off the security blanket of white supremacy that we have benefitted from all of our lives (not to mention misogyny, homophobia, anti-semitism, etc.) Besides, those Native Americans, Africans, Asians did horrible things so they deserve it.”

bob probably feels like Jerry West’s dad was a great parent for beating the shit out of and terrorizing his son because look how great The Logo turned out.

ess-dog suggested that Knickerbocker was as bad as Indian

Oh come on, I simply said that “Knickerbocker is a dumb name and sort of has the opposite problem of the Cleveland Indians.” By this, I meant that it’s an interesting exercise to unravel a lot of our iconography because of the country’s fraught past.

I was hardly suggesting that I found an old-fashioned name for New York-based Dutchmen in funny pants known for their “toughness” to be offensive. I just think it’s dumb sounding in today’s society: It’s like the team is called “The New York Dutch Settlers of New York” just like the Boston Celtics are basically “The Boston Ancient Whites From Britain.”

***First of all they are never called the Knickerbockers…99.999% of the time they are known as the “Knicks” and Knicks doesn’t remotely sound like the n-word. But you are telling me now that every word in English that ends in -er and has an “n” somewhere in it has to be expunged from the English language??? Really #cancelpasttense.***

I’m not telling you anything of the sort, as you’d know if you actually read what you quoted. You’d also know that I wasn’t even the one saying it, Clyde said it. So your beef is with him (Bob = Clyde Police!)

But if we are honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that what too many fathers also are is missing — missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it.

You and I know how true this is in the African-American community. We know that more than half of all black children live in single-parent households, a number that has doubled — doubled — since we were children. We know the statistics — that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.

But if we are honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that what too many fathers also are is missing — missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it.

You and I know how true this is in the African-American community. We know that more than half of all black children live in single-parent households, a number that has doubled — doubled — since we were children.

i literally just saw this being highlighted on Fox news yesterday 🙂

very interesting to see how different news outlets handle the news…lots and lots of talk about black on black crime and how the family structure is missing within urban environments…

i don’t know man, it’s interesting to see different approaches being used to appeal to different audiences…

spoke to my oldest friend who lives down in florida on the 4th…we don’t communicate as much as we used to, for reasons…but, yeah – he literally regurgitated the same exact shit i’ve seen on fox news during the week…

fortunately i was able to steer the conversation towards more common ground – just how gorgeous shannon bream is…i don’t bother disagreeing with him – cuz, much like this site – it’s simply pissing in the wind – which, if we’re being honest, we’ve probably all done before and quickly realized it not an action worth repeating…

i’ll never forget, about a lifetime ago myself and the platoon we’re up at our missile site over in germany doing our thing…it was really windy and this one guy, who was pretty smart actually, starts pissing and pretty much soaked himself – it was absolutely hilarious…

trump fucked up when he dumped on bubba and nascar – nascar airs on fox…they made sure to point out ratings were up – and, all was good in nascar world…

wtf is QAnon? i’ve read about it, and, i still don’t get exactly what it is…

Z-man:
GoGo, Ariza was already an average NBA player or above from age 20-23 (his WS48 was .100 or more with both ORL and LAL.)He played a swing-forward position where he was able to be impactful on sheer athleticism. He didn’t really need to shoot or pass much, just play D, rebound, dunk and hit the uncontested corner 3. Frank is never going to be that kind of player, he’s not the elite athlete that Ariza was and couldn’t survive in an ultra low-usage role, but he’s a decent ball-handler, passer, and switchable defender. The one similarity is that Ariza’s game blossomed when he became reliable when left open from 3. That’s the big hurdle for Frank. If he keeps shooting 3’s at 30-32%, he’ll be out of the league soon. But there’s no reason to believe that he won’t improve his 3-pt shooting. He was the best FT shooter on the team last year at 86%.

I guess you made my point for me. Ariza was never “great”. He was good. He was good faster. Point is that Ariza is and was simply a good role player throughout his career. If Frank can’t get to that level, as you are making abundantly clear you agree with, he’s playing with one foot on the banana peel out the door.

thanks bc, so it’s just message board stuff on the web where people say shit like morbius actually survived from planet altair iv and its descendants are now running our country and the world…

cuz, the answer is always: it’s aliens…

i guess blaming it all on the templars just wasn’t interesting enough for folks anymore…

“i literally just saw this being highlighted on Fox news yesterday :)”

Were you alive when Obama was president? It was a pretty important speech he made of Father’s day. I guess you never read Thomas Sowell…. he quotes that speech often…. that’s where I first heard those numbers quoted an I thought it rather striking. I’m guessing Obama didn’t make them up.

By the way, the prospects of white children under similar circumstances without an adult male in the home are similar.

The Honorable Cock Jowles:
My bolognese is 2 parts beef and pork each, 1 part chopped mortadella and pancetta each; diced onion, minced carrot and celery; a can of whole peeled San Marzanos chopped up; a cup of pinot or another medium-bodied wine to deglaze with the tomatoes. You shouldn’t need much olive oil or butter after the meats render. Saute the mirepoix after that. Add a little heavy cream at the end to really send it. Simmer for as long as you want. Four hours sounds about right.

Really good as a layer in lasagna. Despite my wife’s high caloric needs, she doesn’t allow too much red meat, so this is a special treat kinda thing.

Mine is different, sounds great but might kill me on the spot! With my problems being weight (I’ve lost 60 off my high – yay), high blood pressure (under control) and bad triglyceride counts, I try to avoid the red meats and I include pork in that. So while your beef, pork, mortadella and pancetta combo is absolutely mouthwatering, these days I stick to ground turkey (yeah, I know that loses a lot). I wouldn’t be adding the celery but yes to the carrots. And instead of Pinot, I’ve usually gone with a something fruitier and sweeter like a splash of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo to deglaze but Pinot seems like a good deal with the sausages and pork. And if I’m going to make a bolognese, odds are strong that I veer towards making meatballs instead.

The reason that I make the meatless marinara is that Eggplant Parmigiana, is my favorite dish to both make and eat. I really don’t want meat in that. And while I love lasagna, that’s a lot of pasta for me. Having a batch of my marinara sauce on hand, means I can whip it up a healthy version of my parm in about 40 minutes. I air-fry the eggplant, use only egg whites, whole wheat flour and whole wheat breadcrumbs.

Actually, it’s in the oven now 🙂

that’s where I first heard those numbers quoted an I thought it rather striking.

i’m fairly familiar with the whole single parent home thing – latchkey kids unite…pretty early on in school i found demographics interesting…

it’s not so much the reality of the situation, but, rather how it was used…the purpose of the reference in that setting…

listen, cnn is an endless loop of coronavirus and trump hate (except for those trump campaign ads)…i get both the what and the “why” – do you 🙂

I’m trying to stay away from the politics here. In fact, my recent absences are due, in large part, to the rancor political discussion brings here.

But I have been bothered recently by some things that have trickled into sports. Since I typically avoid the topic, I’ll declare myself a center-left democrat. Biden and Bloomberg is where I align.

While I am all for BLM, The issue for me is the NBA slogan on the back. I feel like that is a horrible idea. It’s comes from a good place, but I fear the unintended consequences. This policy puts pressure on everyone to conform. Not wearing a slogan will single a player out. So I don’t think all of the players will be genuine when they wear it. To make things worse, what if you’re one of the many who’s family is split? Just look at the Conways (KellyAnn and George). Will John Doe piss off half his family by wearing it? What if that player has cops in his family? Let’s take it to the next step. What if John Doe decided to wear a jersey with the slogan “White Power”? How does that impact team dynamics?

Just like there’s supposed to be a separation of church and state in this country, I think that sports is a bad place to mix in this sort of stuff. I’m curious how you all feel?

Wait a minute. Jason Kidd is a serious candidate? Berman has to be trolling us.

Who is even Berman’s inside source now that Mills is gone?

awwwww man, sorry to hear that dough chew…a lot of emotional stuff going on around us, trying to process grief during this time must be very challenging…

you’re right, now is a tough time in many places to need an extended stay in a hospital…that is good though to hear she was able to make it home and have her kids with her when she passed, thanks for sharing that…

that’s a good bit of a drive you took, hopefully you had a chance to think things through a little bit…

GoNYGoNYGo

Some white people are too dense to understand that when you say “Black Lives Matter” you are not saying “White, Yellow, Brown, Red etc.. Lives Don’t Matter”. What you are really saying is “Black Lives Matter TOO” as a way of pointing out that there is racism in the world that specifically impacts black people.

If we just added the word “TOO” we could have avoided a lot of misunderstanding and turmoil.

However, I think it’s fair to make a distinction between “Black Lives Matter” being used as a slogan to heighten awareness of racism and the organization Black Lives Matter that has an agenda that many black people have a problem with too (including athletes and television personalities).

That’s another communication issue.

If I say I don’t agree with Black Lives Matter a person might call me racist when I am simply disagreeing with a couple of the stated goals of the ORGANIZATION but fully supportive of the efforts to rid the country of any systematic racism and issues with policing.

Personally, I prefer getting my political, economic, policing, racism, and statistical insights from experts in those areas and my insights into pick and roll defense from basketball players and not the other way around. I also think whenever you mix politics with anything else, you risk backlash. But the players should be free to do what they want and if the fans get turned off because they want sports and entertainment to be a diversion from the problems of the world so be it. Both are free to do what they want.

I prefer getting my political, economic, policing, racism, and statistical insights from experts in those areas

This from the new long-time poster who said that Russian kleptocrats are more free-market than American liberals. Fuck right out of here, bud! Fuck off! Fuck! The fuck! Off!

“Fuck right out of here, bud! Fuck off! Fuck! The fuck! Off!”

This is not the Sufi way, Jowles…..

How to Undo Four Centuries of Violently Enforced Racism: Criticize the Left while Insisting that Everything Was Just Fine until a Few Dozen People Tried to Start an Autonomous Zone in a Remote Part of the Continental U.S.: A Five-Paragraph Essay by Bob Neptune, with a Foreword by Tucker Carlson

Lord Bob.

I was raised hearing about the Moynihan report. Did you know Moynihan came from a broken family? Or that whites currently have the same rates of single motherhood as Blacks did when it was written?

Wait a minute, Dad, is that you?

Nah geo, I may not always respond but I read every word

In regard to Cancel Culture, I’m getting more and more optimistic that this awful reality show we’ve been forced to watch since November 2016 is getting cancelled in the fall.

geo— stop getting high and watching Fox News!!

I just hope Trump’s tweet-storm demagoguery isn’t a game-changer in the future of politics. When 35% or so of the country actually love his tactics, and his opponents are more and more tweeting back in kind, it almost seems like a 7SoL-type sea change. I also worry that if he doesn’t lose by enough, he’ll rally the troops around the banner of voter fraud, and chant “THEY HATE AMERICA! all the way to the midterms, led by Hannity and Carleson. Just today, Tucker Carleson went to great lengths to defend his position that Tammy Duckworth hates America. And he’s the most popular guy on the talking heads circuit.

“Seems like they’re saying “Don’t be like them! We’re better than that!”

Maybe…. but it seems to have a little tinge of desperation like…”Holy shit…. these whackos we’ve helped empower are actually serious about what they’ve been saying and they’ve going to hunt us down like Stalin hunted down Trotsky.” For example listen to these geniuses:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1280562421040656395

or

https://twitter.com/i/status/1278737212021104641

@bobneptune

The Harper’s letter signees are pretty well spread across the political spectrum with the exception of trumpy alt-righters. David Brooks and Bari Weiss are both big voices on the center-right. I think the issue the letter addresses is important, and it’s obviously succeeded in creating quite a lot of attention, so even if I feel like it could have done a better job pointing out real vulnerable people who are victims of cancel culture, I’m still happy it exists.

@Z-Man

It’s social media. That’s the big problem IMO. Specifically the issue of trolls and bots along with algorithms that reward the most outrageous content. Say you are an activist of some repute… every time you tweet anything that gains any traction, you get flooded by bad faith arguers who are just there to work you up. They are supported by bots that are designed to boost the most combative and emotional perspectives.

This makes ernest conversation impossible and so every social “debate” is a mix of virtue signalers looking to get in on the back patting or to one up each other in terms of how devout of a political actor they are. One way of showing your devoutness is to find someone who doesn’t follow the group’s code properly and mock them in as brutal a way possible. The only truly contrary opinions you read in your twitter are from those with such extreme views on the other side that they’ve already dehumanized the group they’re trolling and so take pleasure in getting them worked up.

This process just keeps increasing polarization.

I think Trump has accelerated this whole descent into madness but hopefully also has helped us begin confronting some of its demons. Things will get bettter w/o trump and w/o corona and w/o an election coming up. But long run I’m not liking this trajectory.

It’s social media. That’s the big problem IMO.

Social media and the vast majority of message boards are flat-out sewers. Twitter and Facebook are well on their way to doing what Hitler and Tojo couldn’t do, which is end the American republic.

On the other topics du jour

–Jason Kidd smh.

–They haven’t always been called “the Knicks” and even today Mike Breen refers to them frequently, especially in the intros, as “the Knickerbockers.” When you rewatch the 1970 and 1973 playoff games, and even through 1989, the Garden PA announcer John Condon (?), when introducing the starting lineups, would say, “And now, here they are, the New York Knickerbockers.” It’s a fantastic name on every level and like a lot of these things has linguistically taken on, through years of use, a meaning entirely different than the literal original meaning of the word. (Which is why the OED usage tables all show the historical development of the usage of English words. Languages are living things.)

–The woke continue to miss the massive impact deindustrialization had on the United States. The real tragedy is that we didn’t meld the massive racial progress between 1965 and today with the rip-roaring industrial economy of 1955-1980-ish. But instead we sold out our industry, consigning a bunch of people to crap jobs with crap wages, no health insurance, etc. (I always try to work back to real first causes, and that’s ultimately why we had someone like George Floyd passing bad $20s, when he should have been earning nice, consistent money as something like a union-backed plant foreman.) Corporations have bought off any criticism of their practices, though, at a very cheap price. Those kind of jobs should be subsidized, heavily if necessary. The American story of the past 50 years is that we sold out our economic base, in favor of an utterly unworkable “meritocracy.” Tragic.

….mistake

bobneptune: “Seems like they’re saying “Don’t be like them! We’re better than that!”

Maybe…. but it seems to have a little tinge of desperation like…”Holy shit…. these whackos we’ve helped empower are actually serious about what they’ve been saying and they’ve going to hunt us down like Stalin hunted down Trotsky.” For example listen to these geniuses:

The Right is trying to sell the narrative that those extremist fringe players ARE the Democratic party. Of course, it has no resemblance to the truth, but that never stopped guys like you. I mean, with Trump dropping like a stone, you need something, right?

“The Right is trying to sell the narrative that those extremist fringe players ARE the Democratic party. Of course, it has no resemblance to the truth, but that never stopped guys like you. I mean, with Trump dropping like a stone, you need something, right?”

The squad dragged Pelosi to the fringe left because she saw 3 months into this congress if she didn’t move she would be replaced as speaker by 2020.

I know…. AOC, Omar and Tlaib are centerists, right?

“One more thing. Luis Farrakhan is not a leftist. He’s a far-right, religious fanatic. He may be black, but nothing he espouses is anything “leftist”. He is a Trump of a different color.”

My God…. Farrakhan is likely the most anti-semetic, racist bigot in this country.

Z-man: The Right is trying to sell the narrative that those extremist fringe players ARE the Democratic party. Of course, it has no resemblance to the truth,

You’re right, the Right is trying to sell that.

You’re also right that, today, they are on the fringe.

But this is something that moderate people are going to buy. Because the lunatic fringe has gained a foothold, and when people like me look around and see who’s coming next in the Democratic party, they all seem to look more like the fringe than the centrists.

Granted, I am admittedly biased living in the heart of Insanity-ville, good old NYC. My conversations with Midwestern Democrats assure me the national bent of the party is not the same as here. I find that reassuring but I still see what is in front of me, and it’s frightening.

This is the narrative that the Right is selling:
-If you aren’t okay with Trump tweeting “White Power” and saying that there’s good people chanting “Jews will not replace us!”, you’re the lunatic fringe.
-If you’re not okay with police strangling and shooting unarmed black men, you’re the lunatic fringe.
-If you’re not okay with public monuments to confederates, you’re the lunatic fringe
-If you are not ok with reopening the entire economy and ditching masks during a pandemic, you’re the lunatic fringe.
Shall I go on?

My God…. Farrakhan is likely the most anti-semetic, racist bigot in this country.

Agreed. So was Hitler and the Nazis. So is the KKK. So are all right-wing groups. He’s not talking socialism and communism. Farrakhan is absolutely far right. Think about it.

Hubert: You’re right, the Right is trying to sell that.
You’re also right that, today, they are on the fringe.

But this is something that moderate people are going to buy. Because the lunatic fringe has gained a foothold, and when people like me look around and see who’s coming next in the Democratic party, they all seem to look more like the fringe than the centrists.

Granted, I am admittedly biased living in the heart of Insanity-ville, good old NYC. My conversations with Midwestern Democrats assure me the national bent of the party is not the same as here. I find that reassuring but I still see what is in front of me, and it’s frightening.

100% agree. The truth is that it’s a vocal minority. The vast majority of Americans are actually centrist, which is why Biden is the ideal candidate from a political persuasion. Biden’s warts (stutter, touchie-feelie, and a son that was employed by a Ukranian company) are so minor compared to his opponent.

The Bernie babes (AOC, Omar and Tlaib) do not represent much of the Democratic party. Truth is, the best thing might be if they break away from the Democrats or are cast aside and form a leftist party, which would give the Democrats a cleaner path to wooing the center-right. I’m not sure if that would happen, but damn, I never thought that this son of holocaust survivors would be living under Nazi rule.

Z-man:
This is the narrative that the Right is selling:
-If you aren’t okay with Trump tweeting “White Power” and saying that there’s good people chanting “Jews will not replace us!”, you’re the lunatic fringe.
-If you’re not okay with police strangling and shooting unarmed black men, you’re the lunatic fringe.
-If you’re not okay with public monuments to confederates, you’re the lunatic fringe
-If you are not ok with reopening the entire economy and ditching masks during a pandemic, you’re the lunatic fringe.
Shall I go on?

You can go on for as long as your imagination can come up with these things.

Hubert: You can go on for as long as your imagination can come up with these things.

I guess you don’t listen to Trumps speeches or Hannity or Carleson, who say this over and over. Anyone that disputes the president in any way is the radical fringe. The Democratic party is a monolith. War hero Tammy Duckworth hates America. Sen. Kennedy said if the Democrats get elected, better build a fallout shelter. But yeah, it’s my imagination.

I can’t remember who but there was a tweet that went around a few days ago from a conservative warning that if Biden got elected, Republicans would be hunted next year and it would be the start of a marxist revolution in this country.

I had to eye roll and laugh so hard at that. Literally no one on the “far left” is excited about Biden. He’s about as moderate and mainstream as you can get. The idea that Comrade Biden would lead a far left bolshevick style revolution in this country is beyond laughable.

JK47:
Demographics are not going to be pretty for the GOP by the end of this decade. Like it or not, the Millennials, Gen Z’s and whatever comes after them are not real responsive to Confederate Flagism and the rest of the Archie Bunker agenda that the GOP is pushing. You think shit is woke now, just wait until most Boomers have shuffled off the coil and the country is made up mostly of Millennials and Z’s. There’s a coming demographic apocalypse for Republicans and Trump is simply hastening the process. They might be able to squeeze out one more win with the Archie Bunker shit (probably not) but long-term they have some serious branding problems.

There was a time when the conservative greatest generation said the same thing about those crazy liberal boomers.

There’s a reason variations of the phrase: “If you’re not a liberal at 25, you’ve got no heart; if you’re not conservative at 45, you’ve got no brain” have been around since the 19th century.

Conservatives always replenish their ranks.

But yeah, they’re going to have to rebrand after they divorce from Trump.

https://www.justsecurity.org/71279/trump-pushed-cia-to-give-intelligence-to-kremlin-while-taking-no-action-against-russia-arming-taliban/

This is the good shit. Amazing stuff from Just Security, as always. But of course, “fake news.”

The conversation constantly evolves, though, JK.

The GOP agenda in 2016 was nothing like the agenda under Romney 4 years prior. So I don’t think it’s reasonable to project that in 2024 the GOP is going to still be pushing the Trump agenda.

Aa for the ethnic makeup of the country, I think the GOP is going to become more ethnically diverse bc the wealth is being spread. The consistent allure of the GOP is lower taxes. As soon as they move off the Trump agenda, it’s going to be easier for the burgeoning upper middle class POC to vote with his wallet.

Also, while people might become more fiscally conservative as they get older, Millenials and Z’s aren’t going to flock to a Republican party that now overtly embraces white nationalism.

Z-man: You say that you don’t listen to Trump or Hannity or Carleson, but you have the audacity to opine on what they say or don’t say. You probably would argue with people on the left that when Trump retweeted a guy last week who chanted “White Power!” it was just an accident, then argue with people on the right that it is proof that he’s a racist. Must be nice not having a core, you can just bust everyone’s chops without taking a stand on anything!

I just think you exercised aggressive hyperbole. Was I wrong?

And I have to say, this is the first time in my life I’ve ever been accused if not taking a stand on anything!

My core doesn’t align with many others here, but I think it’s pretty obvious I have one, and I stand on it all the time. Way too much, in fact.

There was a great bit in Rolling Stone where the author talked to a bunch of GOP strategists off the record and they explain how you can’t even talk about possibly moving away from Trump right now if you’re a Republican politician, because Trump’s numbers among Republicans are so high. Republicans are all in with Trump’s BS.

Hubert:
The conversation constantly evolves, though, JK.

The GOP agenda in 2016 was nothing like the agenda under Romney 4 years prior. So I don’t think it’s reasonable to project that in 2024 the GOP is going to still be pushing the Trump agenda.

Aa for the ethnic makeup of the country, I think the GOP is going to become more ethnically diverse bc the wealth is being spread. The consistent allure of the GOP is lower taxes. As soon as they move off the Trump agenda, it’s going to be easier for the burgeoning upper middle class POC to vote with his wallet.

And down here in the South stuff like gun rights. Seriously, that’s a big issue for lots of right leaning white folks who keep getting told that the liberals will one day come for their guns. Just throw a lot of fear mongering at the wall and some of it sticks.

One of our Senate seats is up this fall, and the two main Republican candidates are not running away from Trump at all. One guy is clearly running as “Trump’s choice” and the other, Dr. Manny Sethi (look him up) is warning of a sort of illegal immigration apocalypse that might come. IIRC one of his ads uses the word “invasion” to describe it. Once one gets the party nomination, he’ll win in November.

Even if Trump loses in a landslide, which I doubt, gonna take awhile to clean the stink off, if at all…

The Honorable Cock Jowles: I mean, come on, Hubert. I know you’re really smart

Yet another thing that me and THCJ disagree on…

Hubert: I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that 91% of republicans approve of the white power tweet or the way he mocked a disabled reporter.I think they were just capable of ignoring it.

I agree with Hubert. It is probably more like 70%.

They never set foot in your world. The things that make you irate don’t even get play in theirs. 70% probably don’t even know what you’re talking about.

Hubert:
They never set foot in your world. The things that make you irate don’t even get play in theirs. 70% probably don’t even know what you’re talking about.

You don’t know the first fucking thing about my world or who sets foot in it. But not knowing your ass from your elbow on a given matter has ever stopped you from having an opinion, has it?

Here, let’s ask bob, what did you think of the “white power” tweet? Multiple choice.

A. What’s wrong with that tweet? It was fine
B. I believe Trump and Kayleigh when they say Trump didn’t hear the guy shouting “white power” eight seconds into the video
C. I don’t like the way he talks sometimes but man his economic policies are sweet
D. That was appalling and I won’t try to defend it
E. Some mixture of B and C

Answer key: E

bobneptune:

You can bring them up all you want but they don’t explain things like this:

Oh my god, Bob! You learned how to use correlational studies again! This is amazing!!!

Input: This study helps me
Output: Correlations = Causation

Input: This study doesn’t help me
Output: Correlation != Causation

Yes, if we ignore all the structural issues that exist regardless of a person’s bachelor’s degree then it’s almost like structural racism doesn’t exist. Surprisingly enough a bachelor’s degree doesn’t make a person less black.

See generally, any studies looking at CVs & resumes of any non-white male sounding names that get ignored in favor of white male sounding names despite the resumes being identical. There’s a lot of them.

Bob, no one is calling you racist or thinks white people deserve some inordinate amount of guilt. But these are actual factors in the lives of minorities and if people don’t acknowledge that they happen, then they can’t be fixed. Not everything is yelling overt slurs and other denigrations (like, our president) but can be as simple as saying “hi” to the white guy in the office while walking past any of the minorities. These small instances add up, you can read micromotives and macrobehavior to see how small differences on an individual level create large disproportionate opportunities.

Moreover, much of this behavior is unconscious. The Implicit Association Test, the basis of several studies run by Harvard, has ample data on unconscious associations with members of different races and demonstrates how people have internalized racial notions regardless of the views they are willing to explicitly articulate. Yes, this includes you, white people, me, other minorities, etc.

And if you do feel even a smidgen of white guilt, then you feel a fraction of how minorities feel and get treated every day in…

How could you possibly know anything about the degree to which anyone steps in any world? You are pulling stuff out of your ass based on your own subjective generalizations. No surprise there.

The good news for Trump is that his “brand” will be stronger than ever when he gets defeated. I am guessing that he’ll be on Fox News nonstop with Hannity and Carleson, doing everything he can to prevent a shifting of the conservative mindset that would suggest that he might have been wrong about a few things. I could also imagine him taking over OAN and bringing his buddies along with him so he won’t have to worry about the Chris Wallaces and Bret Baiers of the world (notice how he’s been ragging on Fox and promoting OAN lately.) There is a tremendous marketing opportunity in his diehard base and you can be sure he’s gonna exploit it for every penny, no matter what it means for the country.

E:
The real answer to the “white power” tweet is that the expected reaction of white people to a country becoming more tribal by the minute would be to … surprise! … become more tribal.

Why anyone could possibly prefer that state of affairs to the universalist alternative is an utter mystery.If white people really and truly become really into their whiteness (as opposed to imaginary into it as they are now), they still have a lot of numbers.A lot.Indeed, this was a not insignificant factor in delivering Trump 2016.So the message to insistent tribalists would be:Be careful what you wish for. 2020-style cancelling and “only white people can be racist!!!” can only do so much.This moment will only last so long.

So you’re saying that this anti-racism/sexism/homophobia/xenophobia thing is just a fad?

I’m saying you won’t like a world in which white people become really into their whiteness and tribal, nor will I, and so it’s best not to do things that will naturally engender that world.

Just as the liberal ideas of the Enlightenment will always be the proper ideas, so too will the racially universalist ideas of someone like MLK and countless others — themselves a product of enlightened liberalism — always be properly preferred to tribalism and reductionist identitarianism. These are timeless ideas, superior ideas — regardless of their temporary standing in whatever time in whatever place.

Hubert: Sure, man. I definitely believe there are echo chambers in the US.

Your opposition to this idea is a strange hill to die on.

If that’s what you meant, then that’s what you should have said. It’s really not that difficult.

Ask Amy Cooper what cancel culture is, or ask that uber-Karen and her husband/partner in Pacific Heights what cancel culture is. They’ll tell you. In broad strokes, it’s the alliance between Twitter mobs and corporations/workplaces to sanction private conduct surreptitiously recorded, with things like job firings.

We can start to extend it out to things like the movement to cancel Hamilton. There are other manifestations as well. The ignoble, illiberal alliance is typically but not always between Twitter mobs and feckless businesses.

“There’s no such thing as cancel culture” is as odd a hill to die on as “There’s no such thing as echo chambers.”

“And if you do feel even a smidgen of white guilt, then you feel a fraction of how minorities feel and get treated every day in…”

EB… I understand your reply is in good faith but I just disagree with a lot of what you said.

I don’t feel a smidgen of “white guilt” because I don’t view myself a compartmentalized statistic. I consider myself an individual who is responsible for what I have done (good and bad) and not what Thomas Jefferson did 200 years ago or what Alexander Fleming did a hundred years ago. I am responsible for what Bob did/does/will do.

I have an idea how minorities feel not because I virtue signal or have read Harvard studies but because from 1975-2000 I ran a small business with 10-15 employees and all but 3 of them were black. The horse racing business is a rather transient business yet I had guys work for me for 15 and 18 years. You know why…. not because I was woke…. but because I was a good boss who didn’t break anybodies balls if they did their work up to expectations and I paid my employees well above scale. I didn’t do that because I was a philanthropist, but because I was a capitalist and I knew if quality people wanted to work for me I would make more money…. and I did.

Do I understand there is some racism in hiring… sure but I’m not responsible for it and feel no guilt. I support any antidiscrimination in hiring law and would like them all enforced.

But the #1 factor that keeps the poor, poor isn’t “systemic racism” but the lack of good paying middle class jobs for able bodied citizens , God awful schools in urban areas as well as the lack of 2 parent families.

That’s where the solution lies and not in changing the name of Ft Bragg.

Willie Sutton was famously asked once , “Why do you rob banks” to which he replied… “Cause that’s where they keep the money!” If one actually cares about people look to actual solutions that have a chance of working.

I’m glad she got canceled. She could have gotten somebody fucking killed.

No, she couldn’t have. That’s a leftist exaggeration nonpareil. There was literally zero chance C. Cooper would have been killed by the police if they’d actually shown up, which they didn’t. They would have shown up, seen the woman was nuts, and moved on. As they do in tens of thousands of these kind of encounters yearly.

But, like I said, there is indeed such a thing as cancel culture and this back and forth is merely further proof of the obvious.

But the #1 factor that keeps the poor, poor isn’t “systemic racism” but the lack of good paying middle class jobs for able bodied citizens ,

Anyone who wants to be actually educated about this stuff with serious works by serious people should put suburban white chick claptrap like “White Fragility” (lol) off to the side and start with William Julius Wilson’s work. Then turn to maybe something like the very recent “Deaths of Despair.” You also have to understand the process of social and geographic sorting that has gone on over the last 40-ish years; there I’d recommend things like Edward Luce’s “The Retreat of Western Liberalism,” Mark Lilla’s, “The Once and Future Liberal,” George Packer’s, “The Unwinding,” and Robert Putnam’s “Our Kids.” Charles Murray’s “Coming Apart” is very good too, but I realize his controversial reputation.

The “elites” have effectively seceded from America, sorted themselves geographically and by marriage, sold out our good jobs, and now they want to start a race war to keep a united and definitive group from questioning their privileges and prerogatives. That’s a bit reductionist, to be sure, but it’s a big part of what’s going on. They’ve succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. While they make their fake “confessions” of “systemic racism” here we are, at each other’s throats, talking about everything but their past and their privileges and prerogatives and their sellout of the country. As Mad Dog Russo might say, “Masterful job by them, Mikey.”

Anyone who wants to be actually educated about this stuff with serious works by serious people should put suburban white chick claptrap like “White Fragility” (lol) off to the side and start with William Julius Wilson’s work. Then turn to maybe something like the very recent “Deaths of Despair.” You also have to understand the process of social and geographic sorting that has gone on over the last 40-ish years; there I’d recommend things like Edward Luce’s “The Retreat of Western Liberalism,” Mark Lilla’s, “The Once and Future Liberal,” George Packer’s, “The Unwinding,” and Robert Putnam’s “Our Kids.” Charles Murray’s “Coming Apart” is very good too, but I realize his controversial reputation.

Cliffs notes?

Cliffs notes?

Deindustrialization, plus my last paragraph. The cliff notes version of US history since 1980 is social and geographic sorting, secession of the elites, deindustrialization.

I’d actually add to the reading list the two volumes of German Jew Victor Klemperer’s diaries between 1933 and 1945 for a first hand, day by day account of living under actual Nazi — as opposed to “Nazi” lol — rule. All of the hysterical “Nazi” and “fascist” nonsense of today is purely a product of social media. Without social media, it wouldn’t exist. Pre social media, David Fucking Duke, Klan Wizard, was winning offices.

Man, it is on in here today…

same shit but with a few different voices, and maybe some better references – I like it…wish I had time to check through all these linked sources…

where do you think fox news finds all these african-americans to support republican “ideals” and back trump…

I wouldn’t know where to find it, but, I wonder how much black participation in the republican party has changed over the last 3 years..

JK47: Fuck Amy Cooper. I’m glad she got canceled. She could have gotten somebody fucking killed.

If you act like a piece of garbage, guess what? There are consequences. Boo fucking hoo. You have the right to say whatever you want but you don’t have a constitutional right to make big bucks at a hedge fund.
So how do you feel about DeShawn Watson and Stephen Jackson? I don’t believe a word of Watson’s apology and fuck Stephen Jackson who doubled down on his bigotry.

bobneptune:
But the #1 factor that keeps the poor, poor isn’t “systemic racism” but the lack of good paying middle class jobs for able bodied citizens , God awful schools in urban areas as well as the lack of 2 parent families.

Bob, totally disagree with you and your own statements are the reason. Why are there not enough good paying middle class jobs? Why are schools in urban areas so bad? Why are there less 2-parent families? You see, those are the symptoms of “systemic racism”.

But to give you credit, when you said:

the loss of lower middle class/middle class jobs in manufacturing as a major factor in the deterioration of the AA family. Until a non-college educated person can find a job with a truly livable wage the human suffering will continue.

you were correct.

The poor black person and the poor white person suffer the same. What is so evil about the GOP is that they are using blacks and mexicans the same way that Hitler used Jews and Gypsys. They are scapegoating them. Similarly, the fascist Farakhan, is scapegoating Jews and idiots like DeShawn Watson and Stephen Jackson are lapping it up. That is the right-wing, fascist tactic.

Why are there not enough good paying middle class jobs?

Because they were all shipped overseas by the same “woke” corporate elite now “confessing” their “systemic racism.” It’s an absurdist spectacle.

Why are schools in urban areas so bad?

Are they, though? The real question in any event is “Why have we made going to “good” schools so important to life prospects?”

Why are there less 2-parent families?

Mostly capitalism, tiny bit culture. It’s extremely difficult to keep mind, family, body, soul together when both parents have to work long hours for crap wages to make the money one person used to be able to make in fewer hours. Deindustrialization is why the lack of 2 parent families became a big thing among whites, too.

Our jobs and our wages got sold out. The 1% took all the productivity gains for itself. That’s the American story 1980-2020. That and the founding of social media. Those two things explain virtually every part of our present predicament.

You see, those are the symptoms of “systemic racism”.

Not really. See above. I could be sold on the idea that “meritocracy” is systemically racist, but I’d be fine doing away with many of its features. It’s been very good to me, but it’s very bad for the country as a whole. I much prefer its predecessor.

geo:
well Go Ny Go, now that you’ve dipped your toes in to this not always so civil discourse of political ideology and social behavior – how ya liking it?

i don’t know, as long as you don’t take what’s said here too seriously (although at times extremely serious subject matter) – it kinda seems a bit therapeutic to get shit off your mind 🙂

just don’t forget – we all gotta eat too, and, seems like you may have some skills with the cooking food stuff…

I have time on my hands since COVID has placed me into temporary retirement, so I jumped in. I am less concerned about Dem vs. GOP. I am more concerned about the bigotry issues. White vs Black, Black vs Jew. It all proves that anyone can be a scum-bucket bigot. The litmus test for bigotry is when any group is lumped together. When a phrase such as “blacks are…” or “Jews are…” is uttered, it makes my skin crawl. I’m OK if you say “Stephen Jackson is scum” because it’s about a single person. If someone were to imply that he spoke for all blacks, it’s prejudice and wrong. I would much rather talk hoops, but I appreciate the multi-cultural aspect of this board when it comes to those specific social issues.

BTW, on tonight’s menu is Chicken Marsala over whole wheat linguini. Yeah, it’s lo-fat, lo-cal too!

Every internet argument ends with Hitler right?

I need the NBA too

OMG did I really just read this?!

i gotta imagine that one was said aloud 🙂

geo: well now then – the most important question of the day: where do you stand on the great frank debate?

I had a to-do about Frank earlier in this thread with Z-man. I was the one that compared him to Trevor Ariza 🙂

Owen:
Every internet argument ends with Hitler right?
I need the NBA too

Not every one, but when DeShaun Jackson quoted Hitler, well, that presses a hot button.

The unfortunate side effect is that it’s not possible anymore to talk about actual freedom of speech concerns because as soon as most left wingers hear “freedom of speech”, they translate it to meaning, “let me say my racist thing.”

The second part of this is correct, the first part is nonsense. You can talk about it all you want. But no one has to agree with you, and civility arguments are just glossed over arguments that power should stay with the powerful and other voices should not be heard. David Shor continues to have the right to say whatever he wants. But he never had a right to his job, and jobs have always and forever been contingent on the whims of the boss. Natalie Wynn can keep doing her thing. She wasn’t forced to quit, and she’s not entitled to political allies or kid gloves from them. Literally ever visible leftist deals with this kind of bullshit and pretty much always has. But there’s no moral lesson in either of those, being visibly political has had these exact costs for forever in America.

But the thing that concerns me more is the all the non-famous people who now are essentially afraid to ask questions for fear they’ll say the wrong thing.

Are you trolling here? Political speech has always had consequences. The only thing that has changed is that the previously powerless are able to flex. Hell, Bennet lost his job because he ran an opinion piece that called for violent state suppression of peaceful political speech and it spawned as many calls of “cancel culture is suppressing speech” as it did “that’s a literal threat to the 1st amendment.”

I was the one that compared him to Trevor Ariza 🙂

well then sir, please – allow me to retort…

I think you’re being a little obtuse here.

translated in to plain english: You are a total nutcase, completely deranged, delusional, paranoid. Your thought process is all fucked up. Your information train is jammed, man!

@bob

The main concern is that people acknowledge the state of affairs in society and act to change them. Your denial of the state of affairs frustrates the creation of equal opportunity.

The relaying of your personal disposition misses the point, the reason it’s called systemic racism is that it doesn’t turn on one individual’s actions or beliefs but the beliefs, actions, and inactions of a large number of people. So sure, let’s put you to one side and grant that you’re not racist in any context or situation. You can still acknowledge the overwhelming evidence that enough people through overt action or unintentional inaction have created significant obstacles for minorities that don’t exist for white people, over and above the disappearance of the middle class.

My point in bringing up white guilt, which seems to only have caused a massive digression (my own fault), is that if you did feel at all guilty about being white or for your race then you would begin to understand what minorities experience everyday. If anything your professed lack of guilt serves to highlight the difference in experience between white people and minorities, who don’t share that luxury.

if you did feel at all guilty about being white or for your race then you would begin to understand what minorities experience everyday. If anything your professed lack of guilt serves to highlight the difference in experience between white people and minorities, who don’t share that luxury.

i’m not sure i understand – are you saying that minorities inherently experience feelings of guilt, or, that all white folks should feel some sense of guilt for systematic racism…

@latke,

You said freedom lf speech was impossible to even talk about, and yet here we are..

That value seems to be fading and being replaced by extreme cyberbullying rationalized by wild distortions of any perspective that doesn’t perfectly conform to today’s version of the leftist ideal.

You’re going to have to provide examples, because nothing seems to actually comform to this. Sure, there are crazed outliers, always have been, but it’s disingenuous to conflate those outliers with some nebulous leftist program. (And all the outliers fight tooth and nail with each other anyway).

This speech doesn’t deserve safe spaces, and it certainly doesn’t grant safe spaces to the people it is directed at. Complaints about cancel culture boil down to attempts to privledge some speech above others. This isn’t the Committee of Public Safety and the only discourse it endangers is that of unthinking privilege.

It’s not really true that the good jobs were sent overseas. Those “good” jobs that are now gone from the US mostly don’t exist anywhere anymore. Technical change has eliminated them, not moved them. Other countries have the same hollowing out of middle class jobs that we do. When I lived in the Poughkeepsie area at the start of my there was a typewriter plant there and the company that owned it said they were going to move it to Mexico. PCs were already a hot commodity and to me at least, typewriters were a dying industry. Nonetheless, all the local politicians were agitating to save the typewriter plant and wanted state subsidies for it. Now that same political mentality is saying we have to bring back all the lost jobs just as they were instead trying to find new types of jobs and employment to replace them. That’s impossible, but the thought still seems to get people elected.

It’s not really true that the good jobs were sent overseas. Those “good” jobs that are now gone from the US mostly don’t exist anywhere anymore. Technical change has eliminated them, not moved them.

Yep. Same thing for local resource extraction. Workers mostly weren’t replaced with foreigners, they were replaced by machines.

To take this back to basketball, why don’t you all line up to attack my crazy. The subject of this thread is “What would you do as the team’s GM” so I’ll take a crack at something insane…

Here’s the lineup I would try to put on the court….

Mitch Robinson | Tyson Chandler or Amare Stoudemire | {27th Pick}
Julius Randle | Kenny Wooten | Taj Gibson or
Carmelo Anthony | Ignas Brazdekis | Kevin Knox
RJ Barrett | Damyean Dotson | Jamal Crawford, Nate Robinson or Iman Shumpert
{Lottery Pick} | Dennis Smith Jr. | Frank Ntilikina

Go ahead. Tell me I’m insane. At least it’s crazy hoops talk!

I wouldn’t mind bringing Gallo back at the right price…

hell yes on bringing back the rooster…we got to get rid of julius first, but, even at an added cost (like an extra 3 to 4 million maybe) – still a better fit and deal…

this is something kind of basketball related: tried watching The Basketball Tournament today on espn…didn’t really work for me…the addition of curtains to block out the stands was interesting though…

oh yeah, since you been away for a bit Go NY Go, just to let you know – we don’t really engage much, basketball or otherwise, past about 8pm eastern…from then until the next morning it’s basically the semi-coherent drunk/stoned ramblings of me, bob and z-man…

yeah, sorry, that’s what you’re stuck with…

“Fallout from political speech has been far worse in the past. Social media didn’t weaponize that fallout, it democratized and decentralized it.

You still have the right to say whatever you want, and now you have an ability to be heard you never had before. It is fucked up to complain that people listened and paid attention. It is fucked up to think there should be no consequences to speech.”

Should the NYTimes have fired (or forced to resign) its editorial board head because his woke/fragile minions had a hissy fit he published an editorial from a sitting US Senator?

geo: are you on crack…
chandler and stat are done…if possible we need to trade julius (he’s a backup 4 or 5)…melo – oh hell no…nate and shump – done…DSJ needs to goooooooooooo…

No, but I did nudge the conversation back to hoops Yes, I decided to go light a fire 🙂
Here’s what I really would do…

Randle is a 3/4 but more inside than out. I really want to get Wooten and Iggy into the rotation. And then there’s Knox. We need outside shooting so I would look for a forward like Bertans, Galanari, or Marcus Morris.

We need a depth at center and I would want it to be a veteran rim protector. There are a few of them out there. Add 2nd F/C as a deep backup up front. This could be the 27th pick.

The back court is a frigging mess. RJ and Dotson are the players I like. The lottery pick is where I hope to find the starting PG. Frank and DSJr just clog up the works on my roster construction and I would seek to trade one or both of them for a 2nd. The only FA SG that excites me is Joe Harris so I think the reality is a lot of retreads here. We also need a prolific scorer but I don’t know where that comes from.

How about Jamal going to the Nets? Also Michael Beasley.

Also, I’ll argue any time of the day these days 🙂

@latke,

I don’t find Taibbi particularly useful or trustworthy, but from that article Fang’s tweet was described as part of a pattern of behavior on his part, and his defense was that he’s criticized the left and the right? It’s not a partisan issue, he simply refused to listen to what people were telling him. Now he has to listen and pay attention to keep his job. I don’t find that out of bounds at all, that sounds like a normally functioning HR dept.

Bennet is ridiculous. I guess this is a response to Bob as well – I accidentally read his short post on it (life is better ignoring the Bobs. No one who engages in that much magical thinking and gets their talking points from 14 Words With Tucker Carlson is worth engaging with).
Bennet solicits an op-ed on the protests from a known bomb throwing reactionary. Bennet green lights publishing the piece without having read it. It turns out that the piece advocates using force by the federal government to shutdown peaceful political speech. Yes, trolling their readership is what the Times opinion page does, but then Bennet admits to not having read it pre-publication! Bennet, who is in charge of the Times op-ed section, admits publicly, that he failed to do his job. I know that a lot of people have trouble wrapping their heads around the idea that you should take responsibility for your own shit, but come on.

I’m sure there are plenty of overreacters hanging about, tweeting shit. But I’m not seeing much overreaction in official responses. Shor fucked up his job publicly. Ditto Bennet. Fang kept his job. Wynn quit on her own. Cooper tried to swat someone, that’s a federal crime.

???

geo: who of the guys from last year would you consider bringing back (say bobby portis, say bobby portis, say bobby portis)…

Sorry, geo, I wouldn’t bring back Portis for 1/3 of his salary. And for the record, I’m sober right now.

“It’s not really true that the good jobs were sent overseas. Those “good” jobs that are now gone from the US mostly don’t exist anywhere anymore.”

Yeah…. nobody makes steel or aluminum or manufactures textiles or electronics anymore……

“It turns out that the piece advocates using force by the federal government to shutdown peaceful political speech.”

That is not what the Senator advocated, You are FOS. Completely and utterly.

Here is what Sen Cotton actually wrote:

“But the rioting has nothing to do with George Floyd, whose bereaved relatives have condemned violence. On the contrary, nihilist criminals are simply out for loot and the thrill of destruction, with cadres of left-wing radicals like antifa infiltrating protest marches to exploit Floyd’s death for their own anarchic purposes.

These rioters, if not subdued, not only will destroy the livelihoods of law-abiding citizens but will also take more innocent lives. Many poor communities that still bear scars from past upheavals will be set back still further.

One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers. But local law enforcement in some cities desperately needs backup, while delusional politicians in other cities refuse to do what’s necessary to uphold the rule of law…

Note he was speaking of deterring RIOTING AND LAWBREAKERS and not “peaceful political speech”. Rioting and lawbreaking are not “peaceful political speech even by today’s Alice in Wonderland standards.

Yeah…. nobody makes steel or aluminum or manufactures textiles or electronics anymore……

Of course they do, but those industries employ many fewer employees than they used to. They are mostly quite automated. And if you consider textile sweatshops the sort of “good” jobs the US should retain, then you’re going to have to bring in very poorly paid immigrants to do them, because they are horrible jobs. And remember when Trump imposed large steel tariffs, a lot of American companies that used steel were hurt by them
and had to shift production overseas or reduce domestic production.

It would be fun to bring Gallo back although I think a decent vet point guard should be the priority.

You can’t really start LaMelo/whoever else at the point right away. Maybe an older guy like Winston, if you take him in the 2nd round, could potentially start, but that’s still not optimal.

So if we can’t get Vanvleet or someone else, it’s going to be Elfrid or Frank starting.

I’m not a fan of bringing Melo back, but they’ll probably do it. Especially if they trade for CP3, which could very well happen.

Here’s the starting lineup I’d want:

pg: Frank
sg: RJ
sf: Joe Harris
pf: Wood
c: Mitch

coach: Atkinson

and this is what I think we’ll get:

pg: CP3
sg: RJ
sf: Melo
pf: Randle
c: Taj/Mitch

coach: Thibs

Bob, and I regret responding to you already, I am not surprised that was your takeaway considering your love of Tucker Carlson’s White Power Hour. The limited looting had already stopped and the “riots” we’re confined to even less time at the start. Of course the police violence was on going, but Cotton was calling for even more violent suppression of peaceful protests by the US military under a flimsy pretext. I can’t tell if you can’t hear the dog whistles or you don’t care. I suspect the later.

In any case Bennet was forced out because he publicly failed to do his job. It’s not surprising that in your world view the bosses should receive every consideration while the workers should receive none.

I’m also really interested in what these three bring:

Pinson
Brazdeikis
Wooten

These are the players that we should be looking at, they have scoring flaws but have put up numbers.

I’m probably least excited about Pinson’s potential as he’s struggled shooting in the NBA despite better G-League numbers. But he has such a unique game I don’t care.

Honestly more excited (which is different than saying they’re better) for these guys than RJ, Knox, Frank. I live for end of the bench, garbage-time in a blowout loss, undrafted free agent player minutes.

geo:
would you look to add more of these veteran 1 + 1 option deals, or, invest longer term, 3 plus years…

1+1 or not even the +1 for most. They are just better stopgaps.

has julius ever played the 3?

I really don’t think 3/4 even though that’s what I said. He’s a lot like Melo – a ball hog that wants to take his man one-on-one. What position is that? He’s a scoring forward that likes to play down low.

who of the guys from last year would you consider bringing back (say bobby portis, say bobby portis, say bobby portis)…

Portis is a dime a dozen. I would rather sign Marcus Morris (expensive) or Taj (cheap).
Depending on how we draft, I really like Elfrid Payton. Given a choice between him, DSJr and Frank, I would take Payton 10 times out of 10.

So we should have an “economy” based on uber drivers and baristas and hamburger flippers? I

I never said this at all. I said the good jobs that used to be don’t exist anymore. They didn’t move abroad. They are just gone. You are moving the goalposts by assuming I think Uber jobs to be good jobs. Why do you keep putting words in my mouth? You still owe me an apology for the last time you did this. Now you owe me a second apology.

I don’t consider those to be good jobs. Those are simply the kinds of new jobs our economy is creating now. That is a problem, but you don’t fight it by trying to bring non-existent jobs back from abroad.

Brian, if you’re preoccupied with more important things in life, we’d all understand. Is it possible to come up with a way to share or automate the task of starting a new thread?

Move the goal posts much?

The irony!

My assertion was simple: Trump’s 91% approval rating among Republicans does not mean that 91% of Republicans approve of the things **you** think define Trump, e.g. white supremicism.

Your pew research supports my thesis. Thank you.

Peak sophistry, impotent word play, substituting slippery definitional arguments for any kind of plausible assumed reading of the word “approval,” as though I would suggest that “approves of” means “agrees with 100% of.” I quote Z-man, hitting the nail on the head:

Must be nice not having a core, you can just bust everyone’s chops without taking a stand on anything!

If you think that Pew article supports your thesis, you’re truly in a world of semantic bullshit all your own.

***So we should have an “economy” based on uber drivers and baristas and hamburger flippers? I don’t get this argument.***

The argument isn’t an argument, it’s a statement of facts: automation is replacing remedial human labor. It’s like Springsteen once sang: “foreman says these jobs are going boys, and they ain’t coming back to your hometown.”

And the solution is one you don’t like, so I won’t say it because I don’t want to trigger you. (But it starts with an S, and is rooted in the writings of Groucho’s distant cousin…)

My 20-year old niece tested positive for COVID. She’ll probably be okay. My 70-year old parents with respiratory conditions who live downstairs from my brother’s family… well, that all seems pretty dodgy right now. My dad just had surgery for esophageal cancer and has recently lost 100 pounds and is very frail. My mom has COPD. They stay isolated but my 6-year old niece who lives with my brother’s family upstairs occasionally comes down for visits, so if she’s carrying the thing they will probably all have it.

They’re getting tested today. Broward County is running out of ICU beds so they’re probably goners if they get positive tests. Not like the ICU beds will help much.

Ron DeSantis says everything’s chill down there though, so maybe this will work out okay.

In short, the solution looks a lot like a Green New Deal.

i like your writing a lot silky, you explain things very clearly…scary stuff for the future in your words as well as some of our other posters…definitely has the sound of truth to it though…

scary in that i don’t know whether as a nation we are adapting to the changes as well as we should…i’m all for better roads, free education/training and mandated public service…i have little to no clue though as to how a “new deal” could be implemented, or exactly what it should include – i guess that’s the part i find most frightening…

i’ve worked as “middle management” (it’s just a part of the military structure) and also in manufacturing and logistics…yeah, i can see the automation coming…

robbie the robot looked pretty cool back in the 50’s, now, not so much…

You’re making great points, Jowles. They’re just not against anything I’ve said. Carry on, I guess.

The Honorable Cock Jowles: If you think that Pew article supports your thesis, you’re truly in a world of semantic bullshit all your own.

Can you state the thesis of mine that you are arguing against?

a corrupt and intrinsically evil mainstream media

Strat’s in top form today!

Hubert’s point is so incredibly vapid and self-serving that I can hardly believe he is so adamant in defending it. Clearly there are many Americans who believe that Trump can do no wrong. Then there’s a bunch who disagree with some of his statements, methods or positions but think he’s overall a great president. That was true for Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and every morally bankrupt head of state that ever existed.

But we’re not Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Fascist Italy or those other countries. The things that his ardent supporters (again, 91% of Republicans ENTHUSIASTICALLY support his re-election) either look the other way at or actually embrace are completely contrary to who we are supposed to be as a country….especially in the post-civil rights era. There is absolutely no question that he panders to the cause of White Supremacy….how can it be argued otherwise, considering his record of public comments both before and during his presidency? That in and of itself is unforgivable no matter what your position is on taxes or abortion.

with a mentally ill far left/marxist constituency dominating his party, all with the full support of a corrupt and intrinsically evil mainstream media.

More outlandish bullshit from an utterly disgusting excuse for a human being. This site was better when you temporarily slithered back under the rock from which you came. But you just couldn’t stay away, could you?

That’s just peachy.

The Honorable Cock Jowles: Must be nice not having a core, you can just bust everyone’s chops without taking a stand on anything!

It’s adorable that you two think not adhering to one of two broken parties equates to not having a core.

The issue with “cancel culture:” now has more to do with destroying the careers of people that may have had ignorant views in the past but have since learned and grown and are not the same people.

People’s EXPERIENCES dictate their views on race, sex, politics etc.. Sometimes people are wrong but eventually learn.

I’m not sure how much truth this group can handle, but I’ll give you mine.

I grew up in a 100% white neighborhood in Queens where 100% of the muggings, robberies, assaults and other crimes were committed by blacks. So what do you think I did when I was a kid and saw a black kid eyeing my brand new bicycle I worked my ass off to buy that summer? I rode as fast as I could and put it in the garage before he could rob me not knowing whether he was going to rob me or not, I played the percentages. Turns out he was following as fast as he could and would have.

When I was 13-14, I had my first exposure to black classmates. When I had my first sex education class I was as naive as a teenager can possibly be. Two of my black classmates were already fathers, others seemed to know more than the teacher, and all the rest were wildly disruptive and joking.

My views at that time were a million miles different than they are now.

Eventually I went to work in the white collar world, met educated black men and women, dated a black woman for a year while in my 20s and met many of her educated friends.

All my views changed . But lets say an ignorant 15 year old me said some stupid shit years ago on social media. Should it destroy everything I am now after all I have experienced and learned since then? I say NO. That’s the problem. We grow as a society and individuals over the centuries, decades, and years. You shouldn’t judge people by the ignorance of their past. You should judge them by what they are now. If they are long dead, you should give them a bit of a pass for their flaws and ignorance if they were very common at the time.

Deeefense: I grew up in a 100% white neighborhood in Queens where 100% of the muggings, robberies, assaults and other crimes were committed by blacks.

Let me guess…Howard Beach?

You guys went off road completely, but at least you have each other.

And this is all in service of your earlier baseless speculation — totally incredible, implausible to hilarity — that since the GOP abandoned the Romney platform after his loss in 2012, there’s no evidence that Trumpism will be the party platform in 2024, which, again, hilariously misguided.

I pointed to the cult of personality that Trump has created — Republicans now identify Trump support as a core tenet of being an Republican in 2020 — and we see the borderline-treasonous intransigence that the GOP has wrought, and you think that his influence is going to just disappear? Because of the milquetoast 2012 Romney campaign?

That, my friend, is what I find so funny about this whole conversation. Your agnosticism is completely meritless on these grounds.

Christ Almighty, thank you.

I never said it would disappear. I was having a conversation with JK47 about what the Republican party will need to do in order to replenish their ranks in the future. I said that in order for the Republican party to replenish it’s base down the road with young people today, it will need to move away from the Trump agenda.

So, if Trump gets trounced in 2020, and by 2022 the Dems gain control of the House and Senate, I do not believe that the Republicans will run out the same platform in 2024.

Or even if Trump wins reelection… If by 2028 they’re getting trounced, then they will change their platform.

That is the wildly controversial belief you and Z-Man have been railing against for almost a day now. Good job, fellas. At least it brought you two a little closer together.

Because it looks to me like you’re gang banging a straw man.

it’s gonna take me a while to stop laughing…

i don’t how or when, but, one day – i’m using that…

I believe the biggest problem in this country is the 2 party system. I mentioned it yet yesterday, most Republicans don’t give a crap about what Trump tweets, says, whose pussy he grabs and how racist he is, all they care about is not having a Democrat as President.

Strongly suggest the book “It’s Even Worse than It Looks.” I can’t link it here because my first two comments didn’t post, probably because I copied URLs, but either the 2012 or 2016 version will work (the 2016 has just an updated foreword). It lays out the polarization of the GOP toward intransigence — even before Merrick Garland, the Mueller Report, and the impeachment debacles.

It also promotes RCV, the end of the filibuster, and campaign finance reform as possible solutions, short of constitutional amendments. But it’s a bleak outlook nonetheless.

The issue with “cancel culture:” now has more to do with destroying the careers of people that may have had ignorant views in the past but have since learned and grown and are not the same people.

Every situation that we’ve discussed here has been about current speech, not past speech, so they’d have to be learning in real time. But let’s say that I grant that it is true that some people have paid a price for things they have said in the (not particularly distant) past but no longer believe*. So fucking what? No one is entitled to a career, especially one at the top of whatever field they are in. Their publicly stated past views happen to derail that career? That’s not a societal problem, that just means they fucked up**.

*I’d be interested in hearing examples of this. People have been complaining about this for ages but I can’t actually think of any real world examples. Who are the people who lost their jobs because of things they posted as a teen? Be specific, because otherwise this just sounds like another of those ‘everybody knows’ things.

**”How could I have possibly known that mocking victims of rape/police brutality/ect was a morally wrong thing to do?” is not a compelling argument.

Where I am now in Queens is a true melting pot of everything,

some family just moved to salt lake city…as i’ve gotten older i’ve come to appreciate living in a area that has a blend of ethnic backgrounds…i don’t like using the word “race” – cuz, it just sounds incorrect and i equate it to “species”…but, seeing different styles of dress, hearing different languages and accents, looking at different shades of humans, is all very comforting…i’m mixed, latin/white…

it’s one of the reasons i like the monterey area so much…within monterey itself a lot of that is due to tourism, but, for the area (marina, seaside, pacific grove) the diversity in the sight and sound of other people is really nice…

where i’m at now has a decent mix…

hmmmm, just checked the demographics on both locations – not really as mixed as i thought where i live…perceptions, perceptions, perceptions…

a lot more native-american and pacific islanders in both locations than i would have assumed…much smaller percentage of african-americans than i had thought…can’t always trust your own eyes or mind…

” that since the GOP abandoned the Romney platform after his loss in 2012, there’s no evidence that Trumpism will be the party platform in 2024, which, again, hilariously misguided.”

The GOP didn’t abandon Romney’s platform. Jeb Bush, Opie from Ohio and Marco Rubio ran as suburban loving classic Republicans, Huckabee and Cruz ran as conservatives and Rand Paul ran as…. well…. Rand Paul.

TRump bitch slapped them and then employed a strategy of targeting forgotten midwsterners who voted for Obama once or twice and had been ignored by the uber rich loving democrats. The results were Trump winning IA, PA, OH, MI, WI and almost MN FFS.

TRump bitch slapped them and then employed a strategy of targeting forgotten midwsterners who voted for Obama once or twice and had been ignored by the uber rich loving democrats. The results were Trump winning IA, PA, OH, MI, WI and almost MN FFS.

At least someone gets it.

He turned x% of the people that voted for Obama twice into republicans by recognizing their frustration and targeting them. He was able to do that because the democrats took them for granted and didn’t understand what was going on in terms of jobs, trade, immigration etc.. Then, instead of figuring out what happened (after being foolish enough to allow it to happen), the democrats blamed Russia and racism. It’s hard to believe they could be that stupid. All they have to do is go back to their roots of being pro worker, but without moving towards extreme socialism and very large government and they will win in a landslide. A dead man could beat Trump. And with Biden, we are practically testing that theory. lol

bob, you might have posted part of it but you either didn’t read it or didn’t understand it or are just hoping the rest of us don’t notice. You aren’t worth responding to because you refuse to engage with the actual arguments people make, repeating lies you’ve heard on Modern White Nationalist, featuring Tucker Carlson instead. Engaging with you is a waste of time because your opinions are vile and repugnant, and your weak and silly posts only contain any truth or reason by accident. Occasionally your basketball posts are good, but those small grains of sanity aren’t worth mucking through the rest of your spew. I’m setting you back on ignore.

I’ve seen careers severely damaged or destroyed for things said in the past when humor was different, attitudes were different, unpopular speech was seen as something to be debated in public so the best ideas would win on their merits etc..

What I’m missing in this is any specific cases. (Thank you Brian, and I feel the same way).

Here’s the thing. Nobody is dredging up some horrible joke someone told on CompuServe back in 1994. Can you even dredge up MySpace anymore? Is LJ still available? Because what seems to be happening is people getting shit for things they said on twitter or facebook, and I have to be honest, I don’t remember the halcyon days of 2006 as a time when saying demeaning things was considered a moral good. I do remember it as a time when people had been complaining for over a decade about how bad “PC” was and how you couldn’t say anything anymore without someone getting offended*. They should have known better.

*hot tip: someone was always offended, mainstream American culture just didn’t believe they were worth caring about.

” Engaging with you is a waste of time because your opinions are vile and repugnant, and your weak and silly posts only contain any truth or reason by accident. ”

Hey… I don’t blame you for skulking off stage left once I caught you with your dick in your hand lying about something printed in the NY TIMES. Feel free to reengage when you find that quote in Sen Cotton’s 6/3 piece that REMOTELY sounds like:

“It turns out that the piece advocates using force by the federal government to shutdown peaceful political speech.”

Search hard my friend….. Facts are damn nasty things.

the two of them masturbating on a cookie together.

hubie, it may be time to go knock on another neighbor’s door soon…or, perhaps time to wisely invest a few hundred “roses”…

geo:
sounds like we may get to see a little of donnie’s dirty laundry…like we haven’t seen enough already…john roberts – nice work sir…i need to read up on him…

One of my two brothers voted for Trump and had been defending him up until recently. He’s been quiet the last few months. I need to give him a call and see what’s up.
🙂
My other brother, a staunch liberal, has been on a Facebook crusade recently.

Anything on the baseball season? Will they get the full 60 games in? Can the Mets take advantage of somewhat depleted rosters for the Braves (Markakis, I think) and Nats (Zimmerman, et al) to win the East?

JK – Sorry to hear it. Hoping for the best for you. My best friend’s parents are down there and got it. Nerve wracking.

Presidential debates are a high risk, low reward activity for candidates. It’s in the front-runners best interests to not debate if they don’t have to. (Nixon never debated McGovern, LBJ never debated Goldwater.)

cavuto just compared nixon worried about giving up his dog that someone gave him to trump paying off a prostitute (and lying on his taxes about it)…

alright, enough comedy for the day…back to life…

Listening to psychedelic rock pop folk from the 60s and the 70s comes naturally for me during Summertime and makes life much better.

Any suggestions ?

why bother?

for the inevitable scene when biden loses control, starts yelling and screaming and calls trump a piece of shit…then the debates can end…

Hubert:
I’m really fascinated by this “no debate” idea being floated about.I’m pretty sure I’m for it.I say pretty sure because I might overestimate Biden’s current position of strength. But it seems to me that if nothing happens between now and November, Biden will win handily.If so, why bother?

I’m ambivalent about debates. they have entertainment value, but probably won’t change many minds. Opinions are baking in more and more, and it’s clearly Joe’s election to lose. Even that would take a gaff of monumental proportions, and Joe still has enough marbles to avoid that. He would likely survive the debates more than anything else, just like he did in the primaries where he got his ass handed to him more often than not. He’s likable enough to shake off anything that would potentially be damaging because the “anyone but Trump” contingent is growing every day. And if Trump goes after him, he’ll look a lot more mean-spirited than he did going after Hillary. Trump also has enough in his record to open up many cans of worms if he says the wrong thing.

I think most people who were on the fence prior to the pandemic, and even after, have paid attention to the growing list of credible ex-staffers who are calling his lack of leadership and empathy into question. Guys like Mattis and Kelly. Those guys add credibility to the Boltons of the world. I can’t imagine anyone coming back to Trump who isn’t on board already.

geo: saw fauci wearing a nats mask…made me smile…baseball, despite its warts is a beautiful thing…much like our country…

of the three major sports in the country, i probably spend more time following baseball than anything else…

What’s your team, geo?

I don’t think there is any reason for a debate.

Biden is as much of a known quantity as we have had in my lifetime. He has little to gain.

I do like the idea of Biden saying I will debate Trump if Trump releases his tax returns.

JK47:
The Bernie Bros all thought Biden was going to have an epic dementia flameout in the final Dem debate and that would propel Bernie back into front runner status. They really hyped it up. Then the debate happened and Biden did quite well, in fact it seemed like he won the debate in all honesty. Trump needs some kind of major narrative change but hoping Biden is going to show up and be a drooling incoherent mess is wishful thinking. He has lots of debate experience and he’s pretty sound on the issues, and what people are likely to see is a normal politician debating against a deranged ignoramus.

He’ll have the usual gaffes…20 million instead of 20 thousand, saying he never supported something he actually did at some time 30 years ago, veering off his train of thought….but again, that stuff is probably baked in. I’d be shocked if they didn’t debate 3 times…and if they don’t, my guess is that it would be Trump who refuses after HE makes a costly gaffe.

Knew Your Nicks:
Listening to psychedelic rock pop folk from the 60s and the 70s comes naturally for me during Summertime and makes life much better.

Any suggestions ?

Moby Grape first two albums
Kevin Ayers – Joy Of A Toy
Henske and Yester – Farewell Aldebaran
Euphoria – A Gift From Euphoria
Zombies – Odessey and Oracle
United States Of America – s/t

What’s your team, geo?

howdy clash:
yanks – ’75
giants (football) – ’80
knicks – ’85
army football (some ups and serious downs there) – ’81

more importantly – what’s your favorite clash tune? lp?

Knew Your Nicks:
Listening to psychedelic rock pop folk from the 60s and the 70s comes naturally for me during Summertime and makes life much better.

Any suggestions ?
Moby Grape first two albums
Kevin Ayers – Joy Of A Toy
Henske and Yester – Farewell Aldebaran
Euphoria – A Gift From Euphoria
Zombies – Odessey and Oracle
United States Of America – s/t

I’d add S.F. Sorrow by The Pretty Things but I’d guess you’ve heard that too. My favorite summer record is actually Songs from Northern Britain by Teen-age Fanclub- it’s from the 90s but it’s pure 60s/70s power pop.

hey knew your knicks…i hope all is well for you…so are things sort of “back to normal” where you are at?

Gris Gris is great.

How about:

Jeff Simmons – Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up
Flo and Eddie – The Phlorescent Leech & Eddie

For fans of Gris Gris Johnny Jenkins- Ton-Ton Macoute! is a must listen.

And Knew Your Knicks: not Greek despite the screen name. And Songs from Northern Britain loses most of the grunge-y aspects of Bandwagonesque and Thirteen in favor pure power pop. More consistent song to song than either of the first two.

Bandwagonesque is my shit, but I have a friend who insists that Songs is a better record. Yet to be convinced.

The early My Bloody Valentine psych-punk EPs are among my favorites. “Strawberry Wine, “Paint a Rainbow,” and “Sunny Sundae Smile” are jangly noisy pop perfection. Just don’t read the lyrics of “Paint a Rainbow” if you’re not into early-Misfits or TSOL levels of edge.

Kevin Shields personally gave me a CD copy of Ecstasy and Wine. I got to hang out with him in his flat. He rolls joints constantly. Sweetest guy in the world.

The Honorable Cock Jowles:

The early My Bloody Valentine psych-punk EPs are among my favorites. “Strawberry Wine, “Paint a Rainbow,” and “Sunny Sundae Smile” are jangly noisy pop perfection. Just don’t read the lyrics of “Paint a Rainbow” if you’re not into early-Misfits or TSOL levels of edge.

That’s a band I’ve longed been meaning to check out and will. I’m currently in a run of 90’s and early 2000’s post hardcore that I missed due to marriage, raising a family, and grading thousands of high school essays…

Man, I forgot about OTC. Really great band from that era.

Well, it looks like Kidd is under serious consideration now, to the point that he’s become Thibs’ main competition.

My spidey sense tells me that things are about to get real Knicksy.

Olivia Tremor Control – Music From The Unrealized Film Script ‘Dusk At Cubist Castle’?

It’s 90’s lo-fi but a legit psychedelic classic IMO

Yes, this!

Kevin Shields personally gave me a CD copy of Ecstasy and Wine. I got to hang out with him in his flat. He rolls joints constantly. Sweetest guy in the world.

I personally hate you

Olivia Tremor Control
I’ve got their: Black Folliage album on cd.
Definitely one of the best neopsychedelic bands I’ve came across. Need discography.

My bloody Valentine
I had purchased Loveless during the mid 90s on cd but found it very monotonous and extremely hyped by the music press. Sold it a few years later.
After a few years while i got into the shoegaze trip i appreciated their stuff. Need to get Loveless back !

Surprised there’s been no Love here for Forever Changes.

Stone cold Psych classic.

There’s much love for Forever changes!
Just Not many classics thrown in the discussion.
More obscure stuff

The cornerstones of Psychedelic Pop Rock Music are the 2 first Floyd, the 2 first Doors, the 3 first Hendrix and Beatles Sgt Peppers.
If you don’t see them around classics are out of the room!
Then there are Love, JAirplane, GDead, Strawberry Alarm Clock, Ultimate Spinach +++
Moby Grape and Pretty Things are well known to psych freaks but not exactly classic standards.
Let’s make it “obscure” for Peace and Love!

Gandalf

Parachute is great but I’m more into SFSorrow.

Soft Machine’s first two have many psych elements but I’d call them more proto-prog than Psychedelic.
This scene from Canterbury is among the most eclectic and exciting u can think of. Gong, Caravan, Soft Machine, National Health, Hatfield and the North are TOP shit!

Electronic Turkuler is probably the best anatolian psych. Nice one from the land of Enes Kanter!

Haven’t heard Shuggie Otis yet.
Thanks for that one!

***The Bernie Bros all thought Biden was going to have an epic dementia flameout in the final Dem debate and that would propel Bernie back into front runner status. They really hyped it up. Then the debate happened and Biden did quite well***

It helped that Mike Bloomberg was a $1,000,000,000 disaster, and everybody’s guns were pointed at him.

But, that’s my point. People don’t win debates, they only lose them. The front runner shouldn’t debate.

Of course. Although Larson once threatened to sue me, which somewhat dims my view of him.

well, in that case – fuck gary larson and his sorry old ass, he can stay retired…i always thought berkeley breathed was much more talented…larson is basically just a bunch of one-liners…

i know i’ve pushed flawed dogs hard in the past, but, maybe my favorite story that i used to read to the god daughter when she was young was: edwurd fudwupper fibbed big…just a really fun and beautiful book…heck, pete and pickles is a really nice story too if you like the romance stuff…

I think he means psychedelic rock, pop OR folk. Any of the three. Not necessarily all in one.

I Love Os Mutantes! Great Summer Psych!
Fapardokly is more garagepoppish but still solid.
El Prunes two firsts are great garage psych.
Mass in F minor still good especially for Catholics!

Gandalf is a Beast !
666 by AChild is probably the best album of all times from Greek artists.

TRiley is mostly minimalistic Electronic but still quite psych. Haven’t heard the one you’re recommending.
Bitches Brew is a Monster!
Trippy Fusion at its finest. Mostly Jazz but still Psych.
Not very familiar with SReich except one album i’ve got: six marimbas. Not bad but i wouldn’t call it Psychedelic.

English Freakbeat,

come on now, that ain’t really a thing…you’re just making shit up now aren’t you – name one single english freakbeat song…i double dare you…

Jennifer dates a man in a ’60s cover band

i like it…

so, the question is – how will this front office handle the “media”, is berman someone who really knows:

why in the world would anyone on the “inside” say anything…i’ll be honest, i don’t really know all these different team beat writers…i got time for espn…and, maybe mlb network and nba network, for the nfl, i’lll usually watch some of the broadcast shows…it’s hard for me to even remember who they all are, i hear their voices, i see their faces, still…

seriously, you guys have freakish recall abilities – it’s just not fair…

In the rock/folk genre I can’t believe no one mentioned 4 Way Street by CSN&Y for its social justice edge…..

JK47:
First Os Mutantes album

Since you brought Os Mutantes to the table, I would like to suggest some of my favorite songs from Brazil’s psychdelia (and some more):

In CAPS are those that I strongly recommend:

– Os Mutantes
2001 (DOIS MIL E UM) (w/ Gil)
ANDO MEIO DESLIGADO
Panis et Circenses
A Minha Menina
Não Vá Se Perder por Aí
Fuga nº II
Preciso Urgentemente Encontrar Um Amigo
Jogo de Calçada
Quem Tem Medo de Brincar de Amor?
TOP TOP
EL JUSTICIERO
BABY (1971 version)
Balada do Louco
MANDE UM ABRAÇO PRA VELHA (progy)
Eu Só Penso em Te Ajudar (prog)

– Ronnie Von
Chega de Tudo
Anarquia
Sílvia, 20 Horas, Domingo
Menina de Trança
DINDI
Rose Ann

– Tom Zé
NÃO BUZINE QUE EU ESTOU PAQUERANDO
Curso Intensivo de Boas Maneiras
Qualquer Bobagem
Dor e Dor

– Gal Costa
BABY (w/ Veloso);
DIVINO MARAVILHOSO
Não Identificado
MEU NOME É GAL (1969 version)

– Gilberto Gil
DOMINGO NO PARQUE (w/ Os Mutantes)
PARQUE INDUSTRIAL (w/ Costa, Veloso and Os Mutantes)
REFAZENDA (not exactly psychdelic)

– Caetano Veloso
TROPICÁLIA
ALEGRIA, ALEGRIA
London, London

– Raul Seixas
METAMORFOSE AMBULANTE
Maluco Beleza.

– Ave Sangria
DOIS NAVEGANTES
O PIRATA
Cidade Grande
Hei Man

– Erasmo Carlos
MUNDO DESERTO

– Novos Baianos
PRETA PRETINHA
O Samba da Minha Terra
A Menina Dança
Mistério do Planeta.

– Lô Borges
UM GIRASSOL DA COR DO SEU CABELO

– Almendra (from Argentina)
COLOR HUMANO

– Som Imaginário
Armina (progy)
Morse
HEY, MAN

– Chico Buarque
DEUS LHE PAGUE

– Zé Ramalho
DANÇA DAS BORBOLETAS
Nas Paredes da Pedra Encantada (w/ Côrtes)
Chão de Giz
Bicho de 7 Cabeças
BEIRA MAR
Jardim das Acácias
A TERCEIRA LÂMINA
CANÇÃO AGALOPADA

– Recordando o Vale das Maçãs
RANCHO, FILHOS E MULHER

– Secos & Molhados
AMOR
Fala

– Bacamarte
UFO (prog)
DEPOIS DO FIM (prog)

O Samba da Minha Terra

wow, that’s nice…

well then leonam – why we got you 🙂 any thoughts on thibs “probably” being the next coach? would you prefer someone else?

Hey Leonam, one Brazilian record that I love that doesn’t seem to be very famous in Brazil is the self-titled debut album by a guy named Arthur Verocai. Are you familiar with that album? It’s great, it reminds me of those cool David Axelrod albums like “Song of Innocence” but it has a distinctly Brazilian flair to it.

I toured with Ariel Pink for many years, and we did a co-headline tour with Os Mutantes in 2010. Sergio was the only original member of the band but it was great getting to know him a little bit.

@JK47 Unfortunately, I don’t know any of Pink’s songs, but I will listen to some of them now 🙂
Hope you are being able to get by these times. It’s tough for everybody, but it’s probably tougher for artists. I also saw your worried post about your parents, so I send my prayers to you and them. They will come out of this unscathed.

English Freakbeat sounds like “Psychedelic garage pop rock” but with a UK mod Feeling.
-I can hear the grass grow by the Move
-My friend Jack by The Smoke
– I can see for miles by The Who
are some characteristic examples of the genre.

Fraction-Moonblood is a great Heavy Psych Doors clone. I dig it too A Lot!
Try Dragonwyck 1st and
Phantom’s Divine Comedy Part1
If you’re really into that kind of stuff.

CSN&Y are mostly folk rock with heavenly melodical choir vocals. Top stuff but wouldn’t call it Psychedelic.

King Crimson, Yes, early Genesis, Strawbs and Focus have some Psych elements but their music relies on complex writing and Musicianship “show off”. They’re Progressive Rock artists. Not Psychedelic.

Psychedelic is more about “feeling” and giving the impression of “flying” or “feeling high” mostly with the use of sound effects, feedbacks, delays..

Don’t sleep on the 13th Floor Elevators EASTER EVERYWHERE, Country Joe and the Fish, and even the Airplane’s SURREALISTIC PILLOW.

There was also a great, 2010 compilation called BRAZILIAN GUITAR, FUZZ BANANAS put out by the wonderful Tropicalia in Furs that is well worth anyone’s time.

JK, were you around with Ariel during the R. Stevie records?

Jerry Garcia’s first solo record GARCIA, is a summertime classic. Even people I know who detest the Dead, ride hard for this album.

Oak, I’ve recently gone way hard into the Dead’s song vault, getting sort of obsessed actually.

My preference, funnily enough, is for their concise American songcraft like on Workingman’s Dead (although the whole catalog is really so good, the Skull and Roses album is a great one!) I’m also getting really into the Brent Mydland years.

While we’re on music, I’ve been dying for something along the lines of a contemporary Joni Mitchell, but a lot of the current crop of singer/songwriter/traditional bands I’ve heard just feel redundant, overproduced, or simply aren’t engaging enough. If anyone has any suggestions along these lines, they’d be much appreciated.

Also in the same vein, Anna St. Louis IF ONLY THERE WAS A RIVER

JK, were you around with Ariel during the R. Stevie records?

We did a show with Stevie in Paris that was really fun. The promoters put us up there for four or five days and we got to rehearse the material a lot. We were able to put a really good show together, it was just a great weird dada experience for everybody all around. There’s good video of it on YouTube.

We did a lot of shows where Stevie would open for us and make cameos with us but that was really the only time we did a proper show where we played their weirdo collab material.

“At this point it would be surprising it if isn’t Thibs.”

Yeah, I’ll be putting up a post soon about how it’s clearly going to be Thibs.

JK47: We did a show with Stevie in Paris that was really fun. The promoters put us up there for four or five days and we got to rehearse the material a lot. We were able to put a really good show together, it was just a great weird dada experience for everybody all around. There’s good video of it on YouTube.

We did a lot of shows where Stevie would open for us and make cameos with us but that was really the only time we did a proper show where we played their weirdo collab material.

My girlfriend was pretty close with Stevie and helped put out a few of those records I think, Personal Injury records, I think it was called. We want to go down to Nashville and see Stevie soon, dudes getting up there.

I somehow thought that they could not blow the Kenny Atkinson hiring. Being a Knick fan really requires blind optimism.

I was pretty sure that Thibs had this locked up from the start, for typical Knicky reasons (A. He’s the biggest name and B. He has CAA connections), so I assumed that they would blow it, but yeah, it’s still a shame.

As KnickfanNJ notes, though, Thibs is obviously a lot better than Kidd, so if it is seriously Thibs versus Kidd as the finalists, then I guess I’m happy it’s Thibs.

That’s the Knick fan mantra, though, right? “Hey, it could have been worse!”

Yep. We are definitely at that stage of our fandom where the FO making Thibs look good by floating Mark Jackson and Jason Kidd is a vague positive sign.

That’s the Knick fan mantra, though, right? “Hey, it could have been worse!”

Always and always and always.

The Honorable Cock Jowles: They are a remarkably inventive band and have significantly different sounds from EP to EP, LP to LP. If there’s one thing I can suggest, listen with good headphones, crank it as loud as you can safely tolerate, and really listen. It’s not background music.

I’d probably start with the three LPs, in order (Loveless is hands down the best, which says a lot, considering how good the other two are) and then listen to the EPs.

Will do. IIRC, I read way back when that MBV was just a derivative of The Jesus and Mary Chain, but I didn’t take that as a negative (true or not) b/c I like that band.

How did the board get this far through psych without mentioning Spacemen 3? Their cover of 13th Floor Elevators Rollercoaster is can’t miss, but they’re amazing in general.

KnickfaninNJ: If he’s the only guy who can beat out Kidd, I’m all for him.

I feel that way about Mark Jackson more than Kidd. Kidd would be low on my list (even below Miller) but I think the jury is still out on him as a coach. It does seem oddly rare that a HOF player becomes a great coach, though.

I feel that way about Mark Jackson more than Kidd. Kidd would be low on my list (even below Miller) but I think the jury is still out on him as a coach. It does seem oddly rare that a HOF player becomes a great coach, though.

I thought Kidd was going to be a great coach, and he seemed to be heading that way in Brooklyn, but when Milwaukee was like, “We think you should work analytics into your coaching more” and Kidd was like, “Fuck that” and was fired at 23-22 and then they hire Budz, who is big on analytics, and the team suddenly goes literally 113-34 in Budz’ two years with the same basic team as Kidd, it is such a shot to Kidd’s reputation that I don’t know how you ever recover from that.

Not to mention, when the guy did a coup on the GM in Brooklyn after a single season there, why would you ever trust that guy enough to hire if you’re a GM?

Kidd was a wonderful basketball player who also seems to be a pretty big piece of shit

ess-dog: Bring in the big, unathletic, former all-star point guard

Kidd was hardly unathletic for the first 10 years of his career, but yeah.

Hiring Kidd is a great way to make the roads in Tarrytown less safe. Might lead to increased work for the floor cleaners at MSG though.

I’m definitely not a fan of Kidd as a coach or a person, but I just really can’t imagine our new CAA team not prioritizing star power and player-positive relationships. But hey, maybe they’ll surprise us?

But Thibs has star power and a lot of Thibs’ players did love the guy. Just not Wiggins and Towns. Granted, that’s trending in the wrong direction, of course, but still.

Ha! Some Senator wrote this whiny letter to the NBA about the messages on the jerseys and sent a press release about it to ESPN, including Woj, and Woj replied with simply “Fuck you.” He obviously had to apologize, but that’s hilarious.

I’m excited about Thibs. All coaches should get at least one pass for a failed coaching stop and honestly, was his time in Minny a complete and total failure? They did get to the playoffs and had a better record under him than before or after he coached there. Wiggins is a favorite punching bag of this blog and its pretty well accepted that Towns is a super talented offensive player who doesn’t play a lick of defense yet somehow its bad Thibs couldn’t “relate” to them.

He knows his shit. He’s also a student of the game. He just has to curtail his tendency to overplay guys, which at this point is a little blown out of proportion. Can he adapt to the modern game? I would bet money that he could and you know his teams will be well prepared and he’ll get them to play hard. I think Mitch, Frank and RJ would all like him. I think Dotson could get more burn under Thibs. And as far as expectations cause he’s a big name…well, Dantoni got 2 years of sucking with no expectations. Its up to Rose to set the expectations with the media as far as are we still rebuilding or competing now. If he makes it clear that Thibs has time to build up the young players, then he will be given the time to do that.

Maybe there are better choices. But we could do far worse than Thibs IMO.

I had written “Desdite”.
Pressed edit to correct it.
A few minutes after “correcting” it i saw it as..
“Desoite”

As The Texans Sabbath (Seompi) are saying:
Summer’s comin’on heavy !!!

JK, best of luck with your situation.

Just caught up with some of the thread. I’m so sorry JK. I have a sister in her 20s down there (in addition to close friends from my own time in Miami) and I lose some sleep over that so I can only imagine how you’re feeling.

Words cannot describe the hatred I have for Trump, DeSantis, etc. It boggles my mind that a simple comparison of our response to the virus compared to that of literally every other country save for maybe Brazil (because they have their own narcissistic mediocrity in charge) hasn’t changed the minds of every supporter of these jackasses and all of their enablers.

They are simply pro-COVID and there is no other way to put it.

Bob, I really hope you don’t catch COVID. Praying for you, bud!

I work at a school where many of the faculty and staff are super pro-Trump. This ridiculousness of Trump and his boy DeSantis basically demanding students return to school when almost nobody agrees with them including our superintendent if this isn’t the final straw for all my pro-Trump co-workers I dont know what is. I talked to a couple of them the other day who were saying what a stupid idea to have students back in school and when I told them blame your boy Trump they just stayed quiet.

The best part was one of them was saying why don’t they just go by what the CDC is recommending so when I mentioned how Trump and Pence wants the CDC to change their guidelines to make it easier for students to go back to school he changed the subject real quick.

“Bob, I really hope you don’t catch COVID. Praying for you, bud!”

I remember someone whining like a little baby he had a wee fever 2 months ago…. but your deep concern is duly noted. Your really do think you are too cute by a half… ain’t it grand when the emperor finds out he has no clothes and is a despicable human being????????

I”m just curious if you increased you vocabulary in your last post by working with vocabulary.com?

Fox News…..Fox News….Fox News…. do I win…. do I win???

I’ll say it

There was a guy here, long ago, who believed Isiah Thomas was a great GM. He defended the Curry trade, the Jerome James signing, the Francis trade, you name it.

I missed this knickerblogger era but I’m not surprised. As the Phil Jackson discourse proves, there’s no amount of ineptitude an executive can reach that will leave them with no adamant defenders.

Just look at the earliest posts. Mike gets shit from so many random people for his pessimism about Isiah. It’s hilarious. By the time I started writing here, Larry Brown was the coach, and people were a bit more accepting of how poorly everything was being run, but there was still some pushback. I remember writing an article about how basically the Knicks were not only bad, but there was no way for them to get good at least until 2010 (this was in 2008, I believe) and it’s hilarious how much worse things have been since then!

Iyamwhutiam: oh man. Hadn’t thought about him in a bit.

“This ridiculousness of Trump and his boy DeSantis basically demanding students return to school when almost nobody agrees with them including our superintendent if this isn’t the final straw for all my pro-Trump co-workers I dont know what is.”

First, a reminder:

Florida COVID-19 deaths – 4,009
New York COVID-19 deaths – 31,999

And for fun, look up how many COVID-19 cases around the country are genetically traced back to New York.

Secondly, the American Academy of Pediatrics is calling for kids to go back to school.

https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2020-06-29/pediatric-group-calls-for-children-to-return-to-schools-despite-coronavirus

Thirdly, the best thing that could come from Joe Biden winning the Presidency would be watching all the people who’ve fanned the flames of hysteria, irrationality, and hatred be so very, VERY surprised when they can’t put those flames out and are consumed by them.

Mike

bobneptune + massive head injury = MBunge

JK47

“Yes, I hope all who thought fondly of Hitler die (or has already died) a horrible death. You’re not quite at that point in my consciousness, bob, especially since apparently others are dependent on you. But I think your worldview is antiquated, destructive, and hopefully soon extinct.”

I always get a Chris Matthew’s tingle up my leg when Hitler is referenced by “objective woke” people…. but whatever…. at least you haven’ t wished covid on me yet. Your opinions are duly noted.

If you would like to present IN CONTEXT where I treated you rudely without provocation I would be happy to apologize.

No. I already explained twice. If you can’t be bothered to actually read and understand what people are saying you shouldn’t be in this blog

n case some haven’t noticed there are two quite polar views of the world

This isn’t true at all. There are many viewpoints in the world. But this explains your inability to read and comprehend. You just assume a post must correspond to one of those supposed worldviews and reply as if that were from one of those two mythical world views. Don’t ever read or reply to any of my posts until you change that attitude.

I want you banned unless you apologize.

And it would do you good to learn to read and think about it.

Oh man, I dropped by to see which one of the three stooges the Knicks would hire (Woodson, Kidd or Thibs), and I was treated to a vintage bobneptune thread.

The world does not have only two point of views, it’s your stupid country (and mine) that have organized their entire political systems around binary, terrible positions with no way out. But to keep supporting Trump or Bolsonaro in times like these just show that you managed to somehow make the worst possible decision out of only two possibilities.

I want you banned unless you apologize.

People in Hell want ice water…..

The Honorable Cock Jowles: I suggest bleach to rehydrate

stop cheating on me…

Thanks KnickfaninNJ! I mean, i would go more into detail but it’s pretty much just like our politics overall, a poorly done pastiche of whatever the hell is happening in the US. Dumb fascist leader connects with not so covertly fascist portion of the population to make life miserable for everyone with a brain. Now our idiot in chief is presumably infected with Covid 19 so we at least had a moment of hope something would happen, but since it’s like 99% probably fake, it won’t change a thing.

“People in Hell want ice water…..

I suggest bleach to rehydrate”

Never drink water….. fish fuck in it……. W.C. Fields

You make assumptions about what I believe when I didnt say anything of the sort, put words in my mouth, then argue against those opinions.

That’s hardly a Bob thing. It’s become de rigueur on this forum.

“Bob, twice you claimed I said things I never came close to saying. That’s what I want an apology for.”

I don’t enjoy being mischaracterized so if you can show me where I made an error of this sort I’ll be happy to apologize and actually mean it.

As for bigot.

“Definition of bigot. : a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices

I think that is self explanatory.”

Not really. There is a huge difference between and opinion and a prejudice. But if that is the definition (Miriam Webster) you like I would posit virtually everyone on this board is rather obstinately devoted to their (what they believe to be well reasoned) positions.

I think the Oxford dictionary captures the commonly thought of definition for “bigot”:

bigot
Pronunciation /?bi??t/ /?b???t/

NOUN
A person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions.

I say many times when opening a post “your position is duly noted” or “you are entitled to your opinion…” I’m not the one calling for people’s opinions to be silenced no matter how fool hardy or incredibly rude I find them.

Jowels likes to tell me to fuck off about every second Tuesday, as it makes him feel more manly but my answer isn’t to cry to the mods for his incredibly rude behavior. The light of the noonday Sun is always the best disinfectant. I may hurl a pithy retort his way in response but he’ll just have to learn to deal with that.

I have a completely different view of this country than many of you. I have seen this movie before (black panthers/weather underground vs BLM/antifa) and the country didn’t like the original much and I don’t think the rerun will go much better.

But I’m happy to see the result of the election and you won’t see me whining fraud/Russia/russia/russia if Trump loses I can promise you that.

Good day….

“Do you not ever feel this way about Trump?”

Trump is like Rainman (an idiot savant ) with an very ugly personality. However I’m not sure what I am not supposed to like about his policies:

Utilizing out own energy reserves rather than giving hundreds of millions of dollars to countries that hate us thoroughly : Iraq/Iran/Saudi Arabia et al?

Getting NATO to pay for more of their own defense?

Crushing the JV Team?

Resisting middle eastern adventurism to where the General’s mutinied (there was a time when democrats would have loved this position)?

Trying to stem the flow of cheap labor into this country which depresses low income American wages?

Trying to rework existing trade agreements to our benefit?

Trying to get China to negotiate an actual agreement with some teeth that they might actually pay attention to?

Presiding over the greatest Economy arguably ever?

Presiding over the lowest AA and Hispanic unemployment ever?

Which of these policies am I not supposed to like??????????

I wholeheartedly sympathize with your concern of open borders and some of the anti-capitalist policies of the left.

TO BE CONTINUED>>>>

“But don’t you ever look around at how poorly the government is currently run and feel like you made wish on the monkey’s paw?”

There is certainly truth to this but has there ever been a situation in this country’s history where the entrenched bureaucracy was so openly in revolt BEFORE the President took office? The prior administration was scheming to disqualify high Trump officials BEFORE they took office. The FBI was bogusing up FISA warrants to spy illegally on US citizens. That’s sort of unprecedented shit. no?

“Our federal response to Covid really was embarrassing. I know you must know that. Even if you don’t think it’s directly Trump’s fault, the buck stops there.”

As y’all know I was probably the first person here who advocated hermetically sealing the country with my “going full Isaac Newton” philosophy so I blame Trump for being a big pussy and not shutting down flights from China earlier than he did and not shutting Europe and ever other country at the same time. Anyone who ever studied biology knew that there would be some event like (or actually much worse) this and no country in the world was adequately prepared for it.

Of course he was called bigot by every politician on the other side as well as the WHO when he did too little to late.

The re-opening is an entirely different issue and I don’t have major issues with that.

I mean you can’t argue with stellar results like this:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.gzeromedia.com/amp/the-graphic-truth-are-new-us-covid-deaths-surging-vs-eu-2646385733

***Does it make me a bad person to pray to God that Comey or Peter Strzok get the “Rog” 4AM SWAT team treatment when(if?) Durham comes for them. Turnabout isn’t fair play?***

Not bad. Just sad and pathetic.

JK47:
I mean you can’t argue with stellar results like this:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.gzeromedia.com/amp/the-graphic-truth-are-new-us-covid-deaths-surging-vs-eu-2646385733

I might be missing something obvious that makes me say “d’oh!” in a minute, but…

How did the EU manage to have negative coranvirus deaths in late May?

Anyway, what’s going on with the Knicks?

Sorry, Owen. This is Redditblogger, not a Knicks site.

Bob is really on that conspiracy theory shit. No surprise there, but man, do you really believe Trump had solid evidence that Comey was a deep-state treason-committing conspirator when he pressured the man into dropping the Flynn investigation?

Me, personally — if I believe that the director of the FBI is involved in a terrible conspiracy to overthrow my administration, I’m probably not openly committing obstruction of justice to him.

You know, just like I’m probably not leveraging foreign aid to get a country to investigate alleged corruption in my political rival if I have the whole of the DOJ to investigate real crime.

But this deep-state trutherism all ties together to serve the same purpose: to delude dumb fucks like you into hoarding tinfoil so you can continue to parrot dumpster-fire talking points and continue to erode trust in all aspects of government. But yeah, Bob! Lisa Page! Peter Strzok! Get the guillotine! You gullible boomer, you!

Hey let’s send our children and teachers into classrooms and do absolutely Jack shit to ensure it’s done safely and just deal with the results when they’re spit out of the meat grinder

What’s the worst that could happen, tens of thousands of corpses, some of those little child corpses? You can save money, they only need tiny little coffins.

-Republicans

Interesting that in the 2 years that the “law and order” Republicans controlled all three branches of government that they weren’t able to accomplish anything but to have a lifelong Republican appoint a lifelong Republican special prosecutor that indicted dozens of Republicans (mostly affiliated with the Trump campaign and in the face of blatant obstruction of justice every step of the way, and one of the most corruptly partisan AGs of all time) and not a single Democrat of note.

You seem to be forgetting the fact that the Gathering Storm is coming and soon the Obamas, Clintons, Oprah, Tom Hanks and Bill Gates are all going to be arrested for all the pedophilias

Let’s not forget that the Clintons (and Obama and Biden) showed multiple years of their tax returns, that Hillary testified under oath for 11 hours about Benghazi, or that the Clinton Foundation hasn’t been investigated 9 ways till Sunday and still has gets A+ charity rating w/o proof of any wrongdoing when compared with the Trump foundation. Man, if they are as corrupt and guilty as the typical bob neptune are convinced they are, the Republicans must be beyond inept at the “law and order” thing. Imagine if Trump had to testify for 11 hours, show his tax returns, or have all of his business dealings and charities fully investigated (Mueller was hamstrung by Barr and his assumption that a sitting president couldn’t be indicted, and still came up with at least 10 instances of possible obstruction of justice.)

But yeah, Durham is going to fix all that.

Im not sure why anyone would consider that an achievement but ok

I think the greatest irony of all is that while Bob erects his libtard strawmen, so few of us actually espouse radical agendas, but Bob is himself a birther, children-in-cages-toleratint, deep-state-fearing, everyone-against-honest-good-hearted-Trump conspiracy theorist bigot.

So he tries to associate us with the furthest left of the left-wing (even though most of us are left-center with reform aspirarions) while actually being a radical white ethnostatist himself. The irony is too much!

Looking forward to him showing off his adopted children so try to convince me that he’s not a bigot, though. Bob Gaetz, everyone!

“Hey let’s send our children and teachers into classrooms and do absolutely Jack shit to ensure it’s done safely and just deal with the results when they’re spit out of the meat grinder

What’s the worst that could happen, tens of thousands of corpses, some of those little child corpses? You can save money, they only need tiny little coffins.

-Republicans”

Wow…. hyperbolize much? Do you realize California has a population of 41 million and as of yesterday hasn’t had a single person 17 or under die of COVID????? Tens of thousands of corpses ?????? Wow…. just wow!

https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/COVID-19/COVID-19-Cases-by-Age-Group.aspx

Now if I had a child taking chemotherapy, was morbidly obese or had underlying conditions I wouldn’t send them to school, but normal kids have an extremely-extremely low chance of dying from covid.

But six black children were killed by gunfire across America this past WEEKEND #blacklivesmatter

bob, he clearly didn’t mean that tens of thousands of children will die.

bobneptune: Please explain to me how Xi Jing Peng stopped all domestic travel by foot, car, bus train and plane out of Wuhan yet allowed flights internationally out of Wuhan to every corner of the globe and obfuscated everything about the disease if he wasn’t trying to intentionally cripple the world economies once he saw China’s economy was going to take it in the shorts with this pandemic.

I’ll wait……….

But wait, I thought Trump would have had the Chinese wrapped around his little finger by now….what happened to all the tough talk? Trump ran on the platform that he was gonna be tough on China…how’s that working out for us?

Kung Flu, racist or not?

Bob, I know reading comprehension and general smart-making is difficult for you but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with people going to Chinatown. It’s pretty overt bigotry to contest otherwise. People are not more likely to be infected by Coronavirus by virtue of the fact that they’re Americans living in Chinatown than Americans living in any other part of the country.

Also, Trump’s travel restrictions were completely limited to those who held a Chinese passport despite the fact that holding an American or any other non-Chinese passport still means you’re susceptible to the disease. For more evidence, you can do any modicum of research to see that American citizens brought back the virus.

Moreover, at that point the pandemic had spread beyond China and so placing travel restrictions solely on China would do nothing to prevent Americans from catching the disease. The U.S. needed a response to the virus regardless of the imposition of a travel ban. Trump has failed miserably at that, refusing to implement federal guidelines or do the bare minimum of encouraging people to wear masks.

Rather, our glorious leader Trump has refused to wear a mask himself, tweeted out support to those who refuse to wear masks, repeatedly denied the severity of the problem because “we just test more”–itself a bald-faced lie on the relevant per capita basis–and, oh yeah, Trump has begun a massive indoor tour.

So yes, Trump’s initial response was inept as was his leadership during the re-opening. Oh, and because Trump is so incredibly inept, the federal government was unprepared because he has the unique inability to appoint competent people, or in even more problematic cases incapable of appointing anyone at all.

And even you aren’t dense enough to pretend that Trump wasn’t already considered a xenophobe. But sure, perhaps it was directed precisely at the Chinese travel ban instead of due to his treatment of Mexicans, Muslims, or nearly any other statement…

and, it could just be your comment that finally changes his mind…

It really is a waste of time trying to get through to the thoroughly brainwashed.

70% of teachers are < 50 so they should be at relatively low risk with protective gear and distancing.

Oh great, I look forward to my wife’s overcrowded inner city school getting loads of protective equipment when they won’t even provide a fucking pencil, and for her special ed students, many of whom have behavioral disorders, to social distance properly.

This is all gonna go splendidly.

it’s one thing to be aware, another to be self-aware, and, a damn near impossibility to be self-actualized (a bunch of honesty and a lot of work, I myself am far away)…

I’m pretty tolerant of a lot of different types of behavior…it’s like hanging out a zoo…generally shitty circumstances for the animals…it is interesting though to watch them…

when I was a kid, used to love to grab a six-pack of michelob and sit on the steps of st. patrick’s cathedral – and just watch people…I could just just hang out there for hours…

It really is a waste of time trying to get through to the thoroughly brainwashed.

absolutely no question for me – you are one of the sharpest people we have here, do you really think after nearly seven decades of bob being bob that bob is changing anything anytime soon…

yeah, probably not…it is good (and healthy) to get shit off your mind though…

bobneptune:
“

There are thoughtful work arounds. 70% of teachers are < 50 so they should be at relatively low risk with protective gear and distancing.There will be lots of kids with pre existing conditions that shouldn't attend school and they will have to be taughtremotely so the older teachers should be assigned these kids. Temperature checks at the door. Allow older teachers to take early retirement/sabbaticals, etc.

There is a cost and immeasurable cost of allowing the entire population of kids to be schooled remotely for extended periods and I don't have to mention them here. There is no perfect solution.

Your numbers might be accurate in the national aggregate but are misleading on a more granular level certainly in high poverty Title 1 schools. In the school district I last worked in ( East Harlem, NYC) over 70% of the students lived in multi-generational homes ( source Equity Project in 2018). Many of the family members are in high-risk groups because of age and comorbidities. So while children and teenagers may not be at risk for serious negative outcomes ( death not being the sole life changing negative outcome), they can and will transmit the virus. Compounding the problem is the lack of access to adequate health care for many of the students and their families including the hospitals where favorable outcomes are more likely to happen ( published in an online newspaper called The City).
This is not a one size fits all situation and sacrificing the lives of a good number of at-risk people because children will not be able to recover from an extended period of remote teaching ( something I do not entirely agree with but that’s a digression I will not make) is not something I can readily sign off on.

My wife’s a teacher

i spoke with a buddy at work, he has a wife and daughter whom teach (daughter does kindergarten)…he said they are voting (???) on their approach for the fall soon…said most likely they will continue with distance learning…

i wish your wife the very best…i know that ain’t a easy situation…

hey z-man, been waiting to hear your thoughts on the upcoming school year…didn’t wanna press…hopefully you can share some of what’s on your mind without putting yourself in any kind of tough spot at work…

JK47: Oh great, I look forward to my wife’s overcrowded inner city school getting loads of protective equipment when they won’t even provide a fucking pencil, and for her special ed students, many of whom have behavioral disorders, to social distance properly.

This is all gonna go splendidly.

This is why I love it when people lacking exposure to the day to day aspects of schools have all manner of suggestions and input.
My wife helps to run a charter school that is almost exclusively populated with special needs students, many of whom have behavior disorders. In recent years, schools have been severely hindered in how they can respond to behavioral issues and I shudder to think of the consequences of those limitations regarding students failing to wear masks or maintain social distance.

Trump has about a 33% approval rating on his handling of coronavirus. That’s actually a bit lower than his approval rating floor.

So only the true dead-enders are sticking with him on this, and even some of THOSE have bailed on him. I mean it’s pretty fucking impossible to get below 33% approval on something, you have to cock it up real good to pull numbers like that.

You have to be a truly delusional fanboi to believe he has handled this in anything resembling a competent fashion. And he ain’t gonna start now, that’s for damn sure. It’s just a few embers.
Don’t worry y’all. If you can go to a Home Depot you can sit in a classroom for eight hours a day. We’re in a really good place with all of this. It’s July, the country is really rockin’ again!

bobneptune: There is a cost and immeasurable cost of allowing the entire population of kids to be schooled remotely for extended periods and I don’t have to mention them here.

Yes indeed, there is a much higher probability that they will grow up to think like you do.

geo: hey z-man, been waiting to hear your thoughts on the upcoming school year…didn’t wanna press…hopefully you can share some of what’s on your mind without putting yourself in any kind of tough spot at work…

It’s an incredibly challenging conundrum. My staff (which I would put up against any middle school pedagogical team in the country) found that teaching remotely was more difficult in every way for teachers and students alike. The “blended” approach currently in place calls for us to basically plan for a 3-in-1 approach…most students will get 33-50% in school and 50-66% at home…some can and will opt for 100% remote, but can opt back in at 3 or 4 designated times during the year. So as hard as it was preparing for one modality, we now have to plan for 3, and do so while teachers are on summer break. Then we have to group students in groups no larger than 12, meaning 3 per homeroom class, which for our school would mean 37 overall groups (16 04 17 groups in the school at any given time. Then we likely will have teachers who will apply for and get a waiver to teach from home, meaning that we will have less staff to cover all the groups. Then there is the prospect of several teachers getting sick at the same time at the same time when there will be a depleted pool of available subs. All at a time when we are knocking on the door of the next school year and I’m the only one in my school officially working during the summer. Then there’s arrival, lunch/recess, class transitions, and dismissal to consider. And last I checked, middle schoolers aren’t the most compliant bunch. We don’t know yet whether there will be a nurse, or how to quarantine students who become ill during the day until their parents come to pick them up, and a billion other things. But other than that, it’s all good!

One of the biggest issues that remote learning presents is how to reliably assess progress. Who knows what is going on at home? Are parents helping with the work? Are students doing each other’s work? Are students surfing the web for answers? The blended approach will help dramatically (we hope!) with that, as assessing in school under teacher supervision is more reliable. The other thing is that a class size of 12 allows has some benefits (class size is an important variable in maximizing individual achievement, so we might be able to more effectively differentiate instruction for struggling students.

Yeah, our county has had parents vote online for what they prefer and its been about a 65-35 split to have kids go back to school.

“Like people don’t remember, nobody ever heard of it until I came along, nobody remembered it for a long time, or they didn’t use it at least, I use it all the time: Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. You know you say that and people say, ‘I didn’t know that’, but he was Republican, so we’re doing a great job.”

Shake Shack is solid. Best in nyc in that category for me.

The full spectrum of poster is tangible here every day. On the one side you have Bob, who doesn’t read/understand half of what he’s responding to, speaks abrasively and polemically, and only seems happy when he has successfully ruined a thread for everybody. Then on the other side, we have geo, who reads every word, remembers personal details, always greets people warmly, and seeks to bring harmony.

We need more geos and less Bob’s.

(Exactly 1 less Bob)

thanks donnie – how you liking this heat, man – i ain’t even in the real desert (thinking of you palm springs) and it was like a 100 degrees by noon…no trails by my house (at least non that i can just step out the door to enjoy), but need to get on the grind here for some walking at least…i love the heat…i love saunas though too…

it takes all kinds…i like bob – a lot…he doesn’t hide nor deceive…

it takes two to tango…bob is actually pretty easily disarmed…just don’t expect him to back up or quit…

i’m pretty sure if we all sat down for dinner, bob would surprise you all with his charm…hell – bob’s probably the only one here who loves reading their own words as much as i do 🙂

sort of like jowles was one of the first to decipher my slightly odd communication methods, bob was the first to accurately depict me as a condescending dick, which i kind of am, i just hide it well…

down here in so cal (home of in – n – out) – i’d pick five guys over in-n-out in a heartbeat too…

now that i got that skillet action going though – just gotta buy some decent meat, them brioche buns and fixins and you’re set…

i may need to read up on how to do milkshakes and some decent fries…

Primary school seems relatively safe, but middle and high school
are worries.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/schools-reopening-coronavirus/2020/07/10/865fb3e6-c122-11ea-8908-68a2b9eae9e0_story.html

For as much as Bob figures you guys as woke, the fact that you still eat burgers and shakes makes you all seem like paleocons and boomers to me! Next time you’re at shakeshack, order a side of PPG and a glass of FG% just to round out your meal:)

if you ever make it back to NY, it would be my pleasure to take you for an Emmy Squared burger and an original Washington Heights Nutcracker.

awww, thank you bo…i am going to make it back to ny…it’s been a while…those of you still there now give me reason to do so…just like i’d wanna trip to portland and have a chance to get me a little THCj in person…

geo if you come during normal times, i.e. after the totally-not-racist Kung Flu, I’ll take you to the best places I know

It really is a waste of time trying to get through to the thoroughly brainwashed.

I’ve been developing some real nice carpal tunnel, so I spent some time today searching for a chrome extension that let you hide the content of specific posters. Seems like it’s probably not that hard to make one if you know what you’re doing, but nothing like already made showed up for WordPress and I do not know my way around css or js or whatever. All the scrolling is annoying my hand.

Is it insane? I don’t know. The downsides to keeping kids out of school for the next 9 months seem really severe as well, at least for kids on 5-9 age bracket. Will leave it there.

Also, definitely not posting any CNN links about Blake Neff. We are moving on.

Also, for some comic relief, Ben Simmons hasn’t improved his shooting in lockdown.

https://twitter.com/KyleAMadson/status/1282094304966529024

My son forced us to do PPV for tonight’s fight. I used to be a big boxing fan but MMA is too violent for me.

***No can do, Donnie***

Do you also smoke cigarettes by the carton and take 10 hour showers? 🙂