NY Knicks' Amare Stoudemire's Hand

As you're probably aware, the Knicks' Amare Stoudemire punched one of those glass-encased fire extinguisher thingies after their NBA Playoffs game-2 loss to the Miami Heat in the Miami visitors' locker room area. Many of us have no doubt wondered, how bad could it be that he's not playing? Well.. now we know! Apparently the deep gash nearly took out a nerve critical to hand functioning. Thankfully it did not. But wow! As barefootBam has pointed out, his hand looks like a baseball! Very, very nice suture job, too.

Via / Source: Amare Stoudemire at Lockerz.com

Shamed Tourists

CTE!

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Spurs Update

So I've gotten a little behind on my Spurs updates.. but not too bad. I guess it was the yawn-factor of the Bobcats game, combined with the "that was totally a game we should not have lost" factor of the Nuggets game. Nevertheless tonight's Knicks game restored everything back to normal.



So here's what you've missed since I last did an update:

• Friday, 3/2, was a good home WIN against the Charlotte Bobcats, 102-72.

• Sunday, 3/4, we took a tough home LOSS to the Denver Nuggets, 99-94.

• Tonight we pretty much blew-out the NY Knicks. The home WIN was 118-105, but it felt like a 30-pt. win.

Friday against the Bobcats we shot almost 48%, including 50% from three (10 of 20), and our defense was strong all night long. Charlotte struggled shooting (37%), and also got out-rebounded by the often out-rebounded Spurs 55-37. Ouch! Enough said. Kemba Walker played 24 minutes, but is still not starting, and Tyrus Thomas played a measly 4 minutes. I'm not really sure what's going on over there, but if I were Michael Jordan, I'd consider selling this team out of embarrassment. Spurs had 5 in double-figures, and needless to say, our youngsters got some quality minutes. Here's the boxscore.

Sunday we welcomed the Denver Nuggets, after having just given them a beatdown last week. Ty Lawson's been playing out of his mind lately, and it showed. We got into an early 13-4 hole in this game, and never seemed to have the energy to get out of it, although we did close an 8-pt. 1st-Q deficit to 4-pts. by halftime.

That 4-pt. lead was still there after 3 Qs, as we were within striking distance the entire game. But the strike never really happened. As soon as we'd make it a 1-possession game, Lawson, Afflalo, and company would have nothing of it. We also didn't shoot very well most of the game, except for a small stretch right in the middle, and we got pounded on the boards 49-40. George Karl's a great coach, and he and the Nuggets were able to force Tony to do stuff he wasn't planning on doing, and rarely got into the paint. Tough loss, but we still own the season series. Here's the boxscore.

Earlier tonight Carmelo, Amar'e, and Jeremy Linsanity were in our house, and they're always a pretty good draw for fans, but I've been waiting for this one. And apparently so were the Spurs, and also the fans who were in attendance. Our spirit and energy were obviously apparent from the very beginning, as it hasn't seem to exist at this level in several games. We shared the ball, and shot well en route to a 28-23 1st-Q lead.

The Knicks would briefly take the lead early in the 2nd-Q, before a nice 30-11 run the rest of the quarter. Manu was being Manu, Tony had 23 1st-half points, and the defense was solid. Well, ours was anyway. TJ Ford would take a cheap nudge from behind by Baron Davis. After laying on the floor for several minutes, he would return to the bench with a "stinger", and word that he was neurologically OK. Phew - he's had several back/neck issues already.

Later in the 3rd-Q DeJuan Blair and Amar'e Stoudemire would get into it enough that Timmy had to get between them (double technicals). And with a 21-point lead later in the quarter, coach Popovich would get angry enough at a foul drawn by JR Smith on Tiago Splitter, that he would get double-technicals, and earn an ejection.

Spurs would lead by as much as 23. Aside from the drama of all the technicals, the obvious frustration from most of the Knicks, and Linsanity (who honestly got schooled all night long by Tony Parker), the theme of the night was the lack of anything resembling
Image Source (Photo by D. Clarke Evans/NBAE via Getty Images)

defense by the Knicks. Tony and Manu both had countless layups. Sean Elliott even mentioned at one point that "#1 [Stoudemire] may as well be a mannequin out there." 118-105. TP had 32 & 6 dimes. SIX other players scored double-figures, including Duncan's 17, Manu's 17, and Gary Neal's 12. The rebound edge was ours this time 47-37, and even losing the turnover margin 17-10, the Spurs dominated. Here's the boxscore.

Next up is the LA Clippers on Friday night.

A Foggy NYC

CTE!

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1925 New York Postcard

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A Quick Look At The Patriot Act

The kitchen-sink approach to national security.
by Benjamin Wallace-Wells, New York Magazine


The authors of the Patriot Act always intended that its provisions would be permanent. The politically expedient thing to do would have been to include a sunset provision, to acknowledge a temporary moment of crisis that required special measures for prosecutors to pursue terrorists. But the lawyers wanted no sunsets; some of them had been working Al Qaeda cases since the first World Trade Center bombing and imagined a long-term struggle that could last a generation.

“I said, ‘Don’t think of this as an emergency measure,’ ” Viet Dinh recalled on July 20. At the time, Dinh was an assistant attorney general under John Ashcroft and was tasked on the morning of September 12 with writing a bill to fix whatever laws might impede investigation. The scholarship provided little guidance for how to make terror investigations easier, so Dinh sent an

Delayed-notice search warrants
issued under the expanded pow-
ers of the Patriot Act, 2006–2009.

e-mail to the nation’s U.S. attorneys and FBI agents, asking for ideas. G-men are not constitutional lawyers, and excesses were rife: Someone wanted to send neighborhood watches in search of sordid types. The attorneys at Justice made piles, winnowing as they went:                         Viet Dinh - The author of   “Crazy Ideas,” “Quarter-Baked,” “Half-Baked.”               America's new security state

In those patriotic weeks, partisan conflict dissipated easily. The Democratic Senate and the Republican House each had their own bills, and Ashcroft, smiling, said every idea in each of the drafts would be adopted unless it conflicted with another provision. Jim Sensenbrenner, the bombastic, rotund Wisconsin Republican, leaned back in his chair and said his bill was called the USA Patriot Act. There were no conflicts with that; the name was in.

“Patriot Act” was appropriately overt. Before 9/11, when politicians spoke of “patriots,” they usually meant soldiers. Now prosecutors and the FBI were reaching for the same vanity—that they were the hard tip of freedom—and the same license to pursue enemies without much oversight or meddling. When it was signed into law six weeks after the attacks, the act made it easier to wiretap American citizens suspected of cooperating with terrorism, to snoop through business records without notification, and to execute search warrants without immediately informing their targets (a so-called sneak-and-peek [P2]). Privileges once reserved for overseas intelligence work were extended to domestic criminal investigations. There was less judicial oversight and very little transparency. The bill’s symbolism mattered also, signaling that the moral deference previously given to the Special Forces would be broadened until it encompassed much of the apparatus of the American state. Local prosecutors, military policemen, CIA lawyers—these were indispensable patriots too.

The Patriot Act was mostly a Republican project at its origin, but it would have died long ago without the support of Democrats.. (Continue to the rest of the article..)

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Some NewYork City Aerial Shots From The Rikers Island Area

All images are from Google Maps, and not taken by me..

And please do check the comments, as there are even more images there!

Act Like You've Won A Game Before

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So Carmelo, you actually won another game! Golf clap!

Continuing golf clap...

What is that, 2 out of 11? For a minute there I thought you guys thought you became a relevant contender.

How Mariano Rivera Dominates

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Mariano Rivera is one of the most dominant closers in history, but what may be most remarkable is that he has done it by confounding hitters with mostly one pitch - his signature "cutter", or cut fastball.

Having run across this video, along with another infographic over at Chartporn Dot Org, this blew me away. But I'd rather link you to the main article about Rivera. So even if you don't read the entire article (yes it is rather long - but great), at least check out the 2½ minute video. You won't regret it!:



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Heat Wave?

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A great post at chartporn dot org regarding this year's high temperatures. And it's pretty ironic: Here in south Texas, we set a record last summer with 59 days of 100+ temps. The previous record was something like 37 days.

I don't think we've hit 100 yet this year!

I know the east coast had a few days of 100+ degrees a few weeks ago, even up north.

However, we were just there (Plattsburgh, NY), and although it was hot, during the week I was there 6 of the days got to about 85-87, and one was beautiful, with a low of 58 and a high of 75 or so. Nothing absurd.

Anyway, I loved this post.. go check it out. Click the banner image!

Steinbrenner Relished Wacky Depiction On Seinfeld

Even if you never watched a baseball game in your life, there was a pretty good chance you were well acquainted with George Steinbrenner, the 80-year-old New York Yankees owner who died on Tuesday.

Steinbrenner -- or at least a bumbling version of the baseball baron -- appeared on 14 episodes of "Seinfeld" as the boss of George Costanza
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(Jason Alexander), the assistant to the team's traveling secretary.

The Steinbrenner double, always with his back to the camera and voiced by series co-creator Larry David -- who had fantasized as a kid about working for the Yankees -- was depicted as a nitwit with a fondness for calzones, Pat Benatar and Cuban cigar wrappers.

"(David) really created this very caricature, this very mercurial personality who's just completely all over the place and neurotic," star and co-creator Jerry Seinfeld later recalled.

In one episode, the Steinbrenner character opines that "(Yankees icon) Babe Ruth was nothing more than a fat old man with little-girl legs."

He then reveals that he is wearing Lou Gehrig's baseball pants, but takes them off after worrying that he could catch the neurological disease that killed the baseball legend. "I'm too important to this team," he says. "Big Stein can't be flopping and twitching."

"If you can't laugh at yourself, then you're not much of a person," Steinbrenner told Entertainment Weekly in 1997. "It also pleases my grandchildren."

Seinfeld and David originally asked Steinbrenner to appear as himself, but he turned them down, wrongly thinking that the George character was a spoof on him. He eventually gave them the green light to use a double.

"I guess they did a pretty accurate job," he later recalled. "Nobody likes to admit they're quite like that, but I guess I was."
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Alas, Steinbrenner struck out with his one chance to play himself on the show. At Seinfeld's request, he stopped by the Los Angeles set in 1996 to appear in the final episode of the seventh season -- the one where George's fiancee dies from licking toxic envelopes.

Steinbrenner's character offered to accompany Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) to the wedding as long as she lost a little weight. But the episode was too long -- a common problem on "Seinfeld" -- and it was cut for time. David was forced to call his idol to deliver the bad news.

Steinbrenner was actually pleased, telling Entertainment Weekly that he disapproved of the fiancee's death scene. "I felt it was sick," he said.

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BONUS: Seinfeld's Greatest George Steinbrenner Moments (#8 is my all-time favorite.)

Hot Dogs Of The Week: Plattsburgh, NY Michigans

By Hawk Krall at Serious Eats



New York state's Michigan "Red Hots" are one of the most fascinating hot dog varieties that I've come across so far. The history of the Michigan Hot Dog is a jumble of legends, a culinary anthropologist's dream. Also known as "Texas Red Hots" but found in the North County region of New York state. The original sauce recipe supposedly came from a Detroit woman who moved to Plattsburgh, hence the name "Michigan" and is slightly similar to Detroit Coney sauce.

But locals will stress that Michigans have nothing to do with Detroit. The flavors are also similar to the Greek sauce of the Texas Weiner/Texas Hot stands than line the eastern edge of New York state—likely another influence on the creation of the "Michigan."

Throw in local Tobin's or Glazier "red skin" franks—bright red natural casing dogs not too different from Maine's Red Snappers — and buns that are similar to New England rolls but longer and sturdier, originally made by the now defunct Bouyea-Fasset bakery—and you have one of the most unique hot dogs in the country.

The sauce is thick and has a little bit of the Greek flavor (cumin? cinnamon?) found in similar sauces, without being overpowering. The raw onions are roughly chopped. You can get them "with," "without," or "buried" (under the frank). A thin line of yellow mustard is the standard condiment, some enjoy a few drops of hot sauce, but ketchup is never even suggested. The paper boat and sturdy roll help to hold it all together. Some places even let the rolls sit and "toughen" for 24 hours before slicing and serving, to better hold in all the sauce.


I was impressed with the great care that was taken to carefully build each dog—something you don't always see at a hot dog joint. To the casual observer, it might "just look like a chili dog." But to hot dog aficionados and North County residents it's a rare gem, worth a long drive just to
Clare & Carl's

taste one. And summer is definitely the time to give them a try since many of the Michigan stands (little more than roadside shacks) are closed for the ice and snow covered winters.

The most plausible story of the birth of the Michigan goes back to the first known Plattsburgh hot dog stand, Garth Otis' Michigan Hot Dog and Sandwich Shop, which opened in 1927. In 1935 Nitzi's (now Mcsweeney's Red Hots) opened, where the owner Jack Rabin got the secret sauce recipe from Eula Otis, Garth's wife. Clare & Carl's opened in 1942, where Eula Otis also worked, and shared a version of her secret recipe that they supposedly use to this day.

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