Enter Handel

Marine...Mammal?

navy SEAL. army BADGER. air force HIPPO

— libby watson (@libbycwatson) March 31, 2016

Shut up

38-0 AT OUR HOUSE.https://t.co/UuFIS9yyuW

— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) March 31, 2016

Moreover...

Draymond Green: 1st player in NBA history with at least 1,000 Pts, 500 Reb, 500 Ast, 100 Stl & 100 Blk in a season. pic.twitter.com/mJLhWfXNom

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) March 31, 2016

68-7...in OT on the road on the back end of a back-to-back --> CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?!

Rebound, survey the scene, #SPLASH. @stephencurry30 on @csnauthentic. pic.twitter.com/ATx1JUZ556

— GoldenStateWarriors (@warriors) March 31, 2016

4th foul on Bogut = an uphill battle for GSW. Low on bigs, rest, and oxygen

— Ethan Strauss (@SherwoodStrauss) March 31, 2016

Warriors are the sixth team in NBA history to win at least 68 games in a single season pic.twitter.com/R2j2eDvLqS

— GSWStats (@gswstats) March 31, 2016

67-7

#Warriors trail 46-37 with 3:02 left in 2Q.

— GoldenStateWarriors (@warriors) March 30, 2016

GSW leads Washington 95-76, 5:51 to go, holding the Wizards to 4 points in the quarter

— Tim Roye (@warriorsvox) March 30, 2016

The Warriors join the 1995-97 Bulls as the only teams in NBA history to win 67 games in consecutive seasons.

— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) March 30, 2016

BBC Radio tribute to Johan Cruyff

(link)

2-in-3 shot

(link)

Just needed refresh my Yiddish: we're discussing politics at work tomorrow

Ven der putz shteht, ligt der sechel in drerd. --> When the prick stands up, the brains get buried in the ground.

Portnoy's Complaint, as every schoolchild knows.

(link)

66-7

Warriors improve to 66-7 (.904) on the season, the best record in NBA history through 73 games.

— GSWStats (@gswstats) March 28, 2016

In fact, the Celtics, Lakers and Bulls are the only other franchises with multiple 66-win seasons in franchise history!

— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) March 28, 2016

Being so good they can't ignore you

James Corden has not only figured out how to get 80 million Youtube views real fast (put Adele in a Range Rover and sing along with the stereo), but he is the first guy in history who has actually figured out how to interview musicians: make them comfortable, play music, sing along, chat a bit.  Pure magic.

It would take more than this to get me to listen to One Direction or Justin Bieber, but the Stevie Wonder and Adele episodes alone should win Corden the Nobel Prize for Television.

(link)

It's not a good idea

Trap game! Trap game!

Only Nixon could go to Fruitvale

(link)

65-7

.@klaythompson RANGE! (@csnauthentic) pic.twitter.com/lQoE2l6Uq8

— GoldenStateWarriors (@warriors) March 26, 2016

Nemesis

INJURY REPORT: Aldridge (rest), Duncan (rest), Ginobili (rest), Leonard (right quad contusion), Parker (rest) are out for Spurs-Thunder

— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) March 26, 2016

Sounds right

The year 2004 was when we completely gave up and embraced stupidity as a value.

(link)

But well-played, nice shot on goal there

The investigative talent at the Enquirer has fled, mostly for InTouch; also, most importantly, this isn't an Enquirer-based investigation

— Anne Helen Petersen (@annehelen) March 25, 2016

ok, that's adorable

#BirdieSanders joins @BernieSanders at a speech in Portland check out the full video here:https://t.co/yKmavgWOEJ pic.twitter.com/zhoqRnZ3rE

— Beatrice E. Peterson (@MissBeaE) March 25, 2016

Makin' Some Propoganda: Suggestions?

64-7

It's a living

The sad, repetitive, unimaginative life of a troll.
(In this case China, but others will see themselves too.) pic.twitter.com/n1oI0OZbkx

— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) March 24, 2016

Bush has endorsed Ted Cruz

I call BULLSHIT

Neme-what?!

Wouldn't it be something if tonight's Spurs-Heat game is a NBA Finals preview?

— Skip Bayless (@RealSkipBayless) March 24, 2016

I'm sorry, explain again to me why this was clever?

Judge Garland is just the kind of candidate we would have advised President Bush to nominate if he had been in this situation. A proven moderate, he has enjoyed widespread Republican support in the past. As a former prosecutor, he is often sympathetic to the prosecution in criminal cases. He has aggressively and thoroughly prosecuted terrorists. Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, who is an expert on the Constitution as well as the confirmation process, admires him. Judge Garland is exactly the type of person who might have been chosen by the Bush administration if a Supreme Court nomination had been submitted to a Democratic-controlled Senate. 

(link)

Vat the fuck...?!

Recent and Recycled Egans

Road and Track is putting more Egan online, some old, some new. Keep it up! Free the Egans!

• "There are people who love puzzles and brainteasers, but I am not one of them. I hate having my brain teased. It's already suffered enough."  (link)
• "Perhaps no human fear is stronger than that of being cornered by a person with Conviction." ('92 - link)

Just had a Latouchian twitch

Never-built plans for La Guardia leave me longing. #NYC #avgeek pic.twitter.com/WbEEnu3AJN

— Aerodork (@AeroDork) February 18, 2016

Neme-heh-heh-heh

63-7

More of a guideline, really

The Republican National Committee's "Rule 40(b)"makes eligibility for the GOP nomination contingent upon winning a majority of the convention delegates in at least eight states or territories, an achievement generally accomplished by winning at least eight primary or caucus elections...

Party officials and knowledgeable sources have confirmed over the past few days that Rule 40(b) doesn't exist for the purposes of the upcoming convention. That means at this point, the three candidates left in the race...are all eligible for the nomination, as, possibly, are...contenders who have since suspended their campaigns.
(link)

Sssshhh, or the women will hear

The wankers cannot win as a whites-only party, which is what they are, and are just too stupid to realize it. https://t.co/45XF90zKVl

— Bruce Bartlett (@BruceBartlett) March 21, 2016

Old Brown Shoe

"Old Brown Shoe" provides as fine an example you'll find this side of "Abbey Road" of George Harrison (Scouse of Distinction) doing his thing while also holding his own. And yet, it retains a B-side kind of relative obscurity that is as unfortunate as it is undeserved. - Alan Pollack


The Beatles didn't just properly execute the Supergroup Implosion.  As in all things, they did it in their own brilliant, high-risk style, in full view of a bemused world, with each member at various times doing their own version of "I got this:  here, hold my beer..."

As the engine flamed out and the wings fell off, various unusual things happened.  Lennon wrote a song called "The Ballad of John and Yoko", which McCartney immediately cut with him, omitting the participation of 2nd-tier band member George Harrison (on vacation somewhere) and 3rd-tier band member Ringo Starr (filming a move).  Supposedly there's a session tape where this happens (source):

Lennon (on guitar): "Go a bit faster, Ringo!"
McCartney (on drums): "OK, George!" 

Ha ha, and they put it out as a single, and boom, more money.  It went to #1 in the UK, #8 in the U.S. despite saying "Christ", and was banned in Spain for mentioning Gibraltar.  Just another day at the office for two guys who'd gotten used to getting paid very very well for recording, well, almost anything.

What was kind of getting lost here was the advancement of Harrison as a songwriter and arranger.  He owned the White Album with "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Savoy Truffle", which even today compare favorably with "Why Don't We Do It the Road", "Martha My Dear", and other assorted crap.  "Savoy Truffle" showed that Harrison could put together a complicated but coherent musical machine, take it off, and land it, all without mentioning the Indian subcontinent.  Musicians enjoy playing it as much as audiences enjoy hearing it (here's the Ella Fitzgerald version).

The biggest problem with "Savoy Truffle", as with many Beatles songs after 1966, is what the fuck is it about?  The band had gotten to the point where their musical ideas had far outrun their ability to put coherent lyrics in.  Despite their fame, money, and spiritual and political pretensions, they really had no ideas or vision to sell, except for whatever was already in the air.

Only Harrison was actually honest about this, and "Old Brown Shoe" - the B-side of "The Ballad of John and Yoko" - can be read as a protest against the excessive certainty that plagued so many late Beatles songs (Todd Rundgren comment here).  I have no idea what's going on, Harrison says, but maybe a pretty girl would help:

I want a love that's right but right is only half of what's wrong 

I want a short haired girl who sometimes wears it twice as long 

Now I'm stepping out of this old brown shoe, baby, I'm in love with you 

I'm so glad you came here, it won't be the same now, I'm telling you 

You know you pick me up from where some try to drag me down 

And when I see your smile replace every thoughtless frown 

Got me escaping from this zoo, baby, I'm in love with you 

I'm so glad you came here, it won't be the same now when I'm with you

Here is Harrison working out the song with McCartney and Ringo:




Here's Harrison doing it in 1992 (24 years ago, already?):



Top prize for a modern era performance goes to Gary Brooker, who gets through the song with the aid of various journeymen:



A couple of additional thoughts:

• Harrison plays bass on the record ("nice job Paul!"), and like a fucking madman.  This gentleman illustrates nicely.  When asked about it Harrison said he just played the bass like a guitar.
• This fellow notes that "I've seen fights break out over who gets to play the [guitar] solo..."  
• Conan O'Brien enjoys singing it.

By the time the Beatles wrapped up Abbey Road, Lennon was acknowledging that Harrison's "Something" was the best song on the album.  It was good of him to notice, but Harrison had been doing the best work in the band for a while.

This could be a weird election

Republican leaders adamantly opposed to Donald J. Trump’s candidacy are preparing a 100-day campaign to deny him the presidential nomination, starting with an aggressive battle in Wisconsin’s April 5 primary and extending into the summer, with a delegate-by-delegate lobbying effort that would cast Mr. Trump as a calamitous choice for the general election.

Recognizing that Mr. Trump has seized a formidable advantage in the race, they say that an effort to block him would rely on an array of desperation measures, the political equivalent of guerrilla fighting.

(link)

• Memo:  Utah is pissed off at Donald Trump. 

CONFIRMED

DNA results are in: Early humans and Neanderthals made babies together

First Sea Lord called it.

(link)

Buster Keaton was a badass

Buster Keaton in Three Ages (1923) pic.twitter.com/ErlDONY8lS

— Silent Movie Gifs (@silentmoviegifs) March 10, 2016

Nemesis

Instead of treating the 30-point beating in January as if it were Armageddon, the Spurs calmly went back to the lab, participated in a marathon film session, and regrouped.

“It was really tough,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich joked just after that 120-90 debacle. “I had to go to everybody’s house. I slept overnight at about four or five players’ houses just to try to get them straight.”

(link)

Stay on target...stay on target...

62-7

Defense is 🔑 https://t.co/7vLKxK2V6K

— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) March 20, 2016

You made it happen!

(source)

Heart of Goldbergness

My Goldberg fetish is now approaching clinical levels.  After a careful listen or three I can vouch for Perahia's masterful performance, and thanks to Google autoplay have discovered Rosalyn Tureck's enthralling 1957 rendition as well.  Glenn Gould reportedly named Tureck as the only pianist whose work he admired, although it was his own acclaimed interpretation that eclipsed her; in 1981 he -Wittgenstein-like - recanted the original effort and submitted a revised version.

But Tureck was hot stuff, too, having gained a particular appreciation of the Goldberg Variations through a sudden epiphany in the 1940s:

[S]he had an out-of-body experience playing Bach's counterpoint, in which she briefly blacked out and returned to consciousness with an indelible sensation of the music as a three-dimensional experience, something existing in space as well as time – inspired a complete reconstruction of her pianistic technique when it came to playing Bach's music. Tureck's astonishingly ambitious idea was the complete independence of her 10 fingers, not just in terms of which note they were playing, but in loudness, articulation, touch and expression. What she was striving for was complete crystalline clarity of line in Bach's densest polyphony, so that each stratum of counterpoint could communicate directly to the listener. 

She once called harpsichordist Wanda Landowska on her bullshit, saying "you play it your way; I play it Bach's way," leading to a hockey-style punch-up, I bet.  The remark seems a little unjust:  Landowska's full performance on harpsichord is eminently listenable, even if the the harpsichord was not exactly authentic, and surely a master of her level should be allowed a bit of room for interpretation.  For further information you may visit the Tureck Bach Research Institute, and say hello to the Mad Hatter for me while you're there.

The Goldbergs present a special problem.

But we are not daunted.  Your real Goldberg aficionado wants to push the limits, go deeper into the G-major labyrinth, and summon the shadows lurking in the shadows, and the antishadows and negative antishadows so as to interrogate Bach's normative contrapuntal stylings and make them confess, compel them to admit that the world is not one glorious harmonious whole created by the hand of God, but a nightmare of unreason, dark, dissonant, and imponderable.

The interrogator in this instance is the estimable Lara Downes:

(That cover, by the way, is to a middle-aged man exactly what Carly Simon's 'No Secrets' was to the teenager. But I digress.)

Really, don't get this album unless you're serious, it is Hard. Core.

Track listing:

1:  Aria, Johann Sebastian Bach

2:  Chasing Goldberg, Fred Lerdahl

3: The Gilmore Variation, Jennifer Higdon

4: Variation Fugato, Bright Sheng

5:  Goldmore Variation, Lukas Foss

6:  Kontraphunktus, Derek Bermel

7:  Melancholy Minuet, Fred Hersch

8:  Rube Goldberg Variation, Curtis Curtis-Smith

9:  Fantasy Variation, Stanley Walden

10:  Ornament, Ryan Brown

11: Ghost Variation, Mischa Zupko

12: My Goldberg, David Del Tredici

13:  Yet Another Goldberg Variation, William Bolcom

14:  Variation on Variation with Variation, Ralf Gothóni

15: Aria (Reprise), Johann Sebastian Bach

...but wait!  There's more!

16: Chorale, Dave Brubeck

17: Prelude in D, Lukas Foss

18: Sarabande, Johann Sebastian Bach

Last night I listened to the whole thing driving home from Berkeley, sick, exhausted, and over-caffeinated.  I'm not gonna lie, some people won't be able to handle it.  It's heavy, it's deep.  It shows you things Bach didn't want you to see.  It tells lies strangely like truth, it knocks you down and hurts your feelings:





After I parked my car I walked through the little grove of trees near my home, and caught myself humming an old tune.  It took a while to remember the name  - "Listen to What the Man Said" by Paul McCartney.  Funny, I hadn't thought about it since I was a teenager.

When I got inside I looked it up.  Yup: G-major.

Dark places, I'm telling you.

Adequate

Nemesis

62-6

.@StephenCurry30 bankin' it in from the baseline. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (CSNBA) pic.twitter.com/ihfBFnDE1a

— GoldenStateWarriors (@warriors) March 19, 2016

Two more angles of that shot here.

61-6

Intensify countermeasures

Trump has fallen below his target line.  Repeat:  Trump has fallen below his target line.  (link)

I did not know that

As I was somewhat distracted in 2008 I failed to note the passing of Siegfried Knappe, who:

• Fought in artillery units for the Germans in WW2, and was decorated for bravery on numerous occasions,
• Became a staff officer,
• Did daily briefings in the Führerbunker, and was one of the last to depart (his account of this experience was one source for the movie Downfall),
• Was captured and imprisoned by the Russians, but released in 1949,
• Emigrated to the U.S. and moved to Dayton, OH, where he became an executive at NCR (formerly National Cash Register), 
• Retired in 1983,
• and wrote Soldat: Reflections of a German Soldier, 1936-1949.

Well, ok.  But forgive me if I don't salute.

(link)

AWESOME

The Guggenheim Puts 109 Free Modern Art Books Online

(link)

Should...not...laugh...

It’s like watching someone have a nervous breakdown. Just more fun. pic.twitter.com/laTyMoKVLu

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 16, 2016

Ambiguity is our friend

When you put it all together, I think the result on Tuesday can best be defined as messy. Trump is likely to have a plurality of delegates after all the contests have finished up on June 7. But a majority? We still don’t know.

(link)

If Trump doesn't get the delegates and doesn't win at the convention no one would be TAKING anything from him. That would be "losing."

— Ben White (@morningmoneyben) March 16, 2016

Relegated to the ash heap of history

Brown also re-opened a years-old feud with former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who withdrew from the presidential race last year. Before leaving office, Perry, a self-proclaimed hunter of jobs, ran radio ads in California luring companies to move to his state.

“If I asked you who was that governor, there aren’t 50 people in this room that could even tell me his damn name,” Brown said. “And people who attack California, they do become anonymous and forgotten. Rightfully so.”

(link)

Nemesis

More fun facts…

Most wins by 20+ points this season:

1. Spurs - 20
2. Warriors - 12
3t. Cavaliers - 11
3t. Thunder - 11

— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) March 16, 2016

If you're going to have one hit, make it count

60-6

This is madness.

Anthony Davis -30

— Marcus Thompson (@ThompsonScribe) March 15, 2016

But #Revolution sounds sexier

From Post War: A History of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt:

Nevertheless, within the general post-war European consensus there was a distinctive vision, that of the Social Democrats. Social Democracy had always been a hybrid; indeed, this was just what was held against it by enemies of the Right and Left alike. A practice in lifelong search of its theory, Social Democracy was the outcome of an insight vouchsafed to a generation of European socialists early in the twentieth century: that radial social revolution in the heartlands of modern Europe -- as prophesied and planned by the socialist visionaries of the nineteenth century -- lay in the past, not the future. As a solution to the injustice and inefficiency of industrial capitalism, the nineteenth-century paradigm of violent urban upheaval was not only undesirable and unlikely to meet its goals; it was also redundant. Genuine improvements to the condition of all classes could be obtained in incremental and peaceful ways.

Nemesis

We protected our house. Good win tonight against an always tough team to play. 41 consecutive wins at home! Grateful to be part of this team

— Boris Diaw (@theborisdiaw) March 13, 2016

Saturday Night Mood https://t.co/t8Ffvh4BEM

— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) March 13, 2016

59-6

Early 4th quarter

Final

Marreese Speights finishes w/25 pts in just 18 minutes as the Warriors run their NBA-record home win streak to 48. pic.twitter.com/hAoDKeDCew

— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) March 13, 2016

.@StephenCurry30 led w/ 35pts/3reb/6asst, @Mospeights16 (🔥) added a huge 25pts/9reb/2stl off the bench &@KlayThompson added 20pts/6reb/3asst

— GoldenStateWarriors (@warriors) March 13, 2016

Thank you

"A man so transparently unfit for office should not be placed before the American[s] as a candidate for president.." https://t.co/52d4mpNAS7

— Tim Duy (@TimDuy) March 13, 2016

Obama wrecks GOP

What is happening in this primary is just a distillation of what’s been happening inside their party for more than a decade. I mean, the reason that many of their voters are responding is because this is what’s been fed through the messages they’ve been sending for a long time — that you just make flat assertions that don’t comport with the facts. That you just deny the evidence of science. That compromise is a betrayal. That the other side isn’t simply wrong, or we just disagree, we want to take a different approach, but the other side is destroying the country, or treasonous. I mean, that’s — look it up. That’s what they’ve been saying.

So they can’t be surprised when somebody suddenly looks and says, you know what, I can do that even better. I can make stuff up better than that. I can be more outrageous than that. I can insult people even better than that. I can be even more uncivil. I mean, conservative outlets have been feeding their base constantly the notion that everything is a disaster, that everybody else is to blame, that Obamacare is destroying the country. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not. It’s not, we disagree with this program, we think we can do it better — it’s, oh, this is a crisis!

So if you don’t care about the facts, or the evidence, or civility, in general in making your arguments, you will end up with candidates who will say just about anything and do just about anything. And when your answer to every proposal that I make, or Democrats make is no, it means that you’ve got to become more and more unreasonable because that’s the only way you can say no to some pretty reasonable stuff. And then you shouldn’t be surprised when your party ultimately has no ideas to offer at all.

(link)

Now, all we have to do is VOTE

How are you doing on your life goals?

FDR died at the age of 63.

(link)

My technological breakthrough

I discovered an exciting new tool that I'm evaluating, both at work and at home, that I wanted to tell you about: a blank sheet of paper and a pen.

Why not a pencil? When I use a pencil, I spend time correcting my mistakes, and mental energy deciding whether I should correct my mistakes. If I start making too many mistakes with a pen, it alerts me that I need to slow down.

This tool very inexpensive. You don't have to buy expensive fountain pens, fancy inks, and European paper to do this. (But I did, of course. If your curious about what I found out while doing this, please ask questions in the comments.)

58-6 ( ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

How will America survived without adult supervision?

If you haven't already, find the time to read this yuge-ass article on Obama in the Atlantic:

In 2014, after she left office, Clinton told me that “the failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad … left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled.” When The Atlantic published this statement, and also published Clinton’s assessment that “great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle,” Obama became “rip-shit angry,” according to one of his senior advisers. The president did not understand how “Don’t do stupid shit” could be considered a controversial slogan. Ben Rhodes recalls that “the questions we were asking in the White House were ‘Who exactly is in the stupid-shit caucus? Who is pro–stupid shit?’ ” The Iraq invasion, Obama believed, should have taught Democratic interventionists like Clinton, who had voted for its authorization, the dangers of doing stupid shit.

Live footage from Chicago

Yglesias states the unmentionable obvious

Obama hangs over every moment of the 2016 race. It would make a lot more sense for him to directly face his critics on the left (Bernie Sanders) and right (every Republican) rather than do so indirectly through the proxy of Hillary Clinton. If the voters are persuaded to take the country in a different direction, then so be it. But it's strange to have his legacy held partially hostage to controversies over email server management and a 1994 crime bill he had nothing to do with.

The problem, of course, is that a third Obama term would be unconstitutional. The 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951, prohibits presidents from serving more than two terms. But though it can't be repealed in time for the 2016 election, term limits clearly have to go. We should return to the democratic practice that served our country well for 150 years: Let the parties nominate whom they like, and let the voters choose their favorite.

(link)


Let me just add, that I find it bizarre that the greatest president of my lifetime will be succeeded by an abrasive, corrupt, self-absorbed monster, or Donald Trump.  Just doesn't seem right.

Nemesis

Spurs close to within three.

Re: Babies

Ludicrous

Curry has hit 5-of-13 shots from beyond 39 feet, good for 38.4 percent.

(link)

57-6

Mo out here throwing touchdowns on @csnauthentic pic.twitter.com/i1lUdsYnP7

— GoldenStateWarriors (@warriors) March 10, 2016

Mo Montana threads the needle for a touchdown to Barbosa pic.twitter.com/frllXbCRkc

— LOLKNBR (@LOLKNBR) March 10, 2016

Glimpses in the crowd

[O]n the sidelines there’s another toothy lovely in a vest, listening to John. It first looks like she has one stylish boot up on the table. But when you look more closely—and A Hard Day’s Night repays frame-by-frame examination more fully than the Zapruder film—you discover her heel is actually cupped in a companion’s hand. Furthermore, she’s wiggling it slowly, delectably, and oh-so-indolently, nibbling on whatever the in crowd nibbled in the spring of 1964.

(link)

Nemesis

No 'Big Three' no worries as Spurs cruise to easy victory at Minnesota

LaMarcus Aldridge went for a game-high 29 points as the Spurs played the game without Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili, who rested for the game. Tony Parker missed the game with a left toe contusion suffered Monday in Indianapolis. And Gregg Popovich was away tending to a family health issue.

(link)

The great chase

There are twenty games left in the NBA season.  I made the decision last fall to keep blogging Warriors games until they fell off the pace of the winningest team of all time, the 95-96 Bulls.  They never did.  The NBA tracks the state of the chase here.  Today, at 56-6, they are one game ahead of the Bulls in the loss column.

To tie the Bulls' 72-10 record (it is inconceivable that they could break it), the Warriors need to go 16-4 down the stretch, an .800 winning percentage.  This would actually represent a decline from their current pace.

A few additional points:

• Only six of the remaining games are on the road.  The Warriors have not lost at home this season, and in fact have just set the NBA record for consecutive home wins.

• Three of remaining games are against the 54-10 Spurs, who are just four games behind the Warriors in the loss column.  If the Spurs somehow manage to finish ahead of the Warriors, they get the #1 seed in the west, and play their game 7s (if needed) at home all the way through.  In other words, although both have clinched playoff spots, both the Warriors and Spurs are still playing for something.

• Kerr is emphatic that he will not compromise the team's championship hopes just to get the regular season win record. 
• He will start to limit Curry's minutes, just as he did last year, but probably more aggressively because Curry has a dodgy ankle.
• Iguodala is hurt - has to rest.
• Ezeli is hurt - had surgery, may be back in time for the playoffs.
• Green is sick and pissed off.

After a loss in LA over the weekend and an uninspiring victory over the Magic last night, the Warriors seem to have lost some of their elan.  After all, it has been almost two weeks since they crushed the OKC Thunder in their own place, and almost a week since they did it again at Oracle.

We can only hope this benighted team returns to form soon.

No time for that bullshit

I read this in January, and I think of it every day:

...America is in no mood for healing.

(link)

56-6

An Ilustration of the GOP, Right Now

White People, Give Me Your Anger!

Scary!

So scary.

Thank you, Mr. Bloomberg

As the race stands now, with Republicans in charge of both Houses, there is a good chance that my candidacy could lead to the election of Donald Trump or Senator Ted Cruz. That is not a risk I can take in good conscience.

(link)

Legal system seems to be functioning well

Without bothering to hear arguments, the justices reversed the Alabama Supreme Court...

(link)

They're in my shirt cupboard...!

There are lots, but not enough

[W]ith every passing election that Sanders does not alter the fundamental demographics of the race it becomes clearer and clearer that he is drawing dead in this campaign. We've seen time and again that Sanders can beat Clinton in states that have overwhelmingly white Democratic parties.

His problem is that there aren't enough white Democrats to make this strategy work.

(link)

Can you hear them calling?

55-6

Strange But True:
• 1995-96 Bulls: Blown out in 61st game
• 2015-16 Warriors: Blown out in 61st game pic.twitter.com/LJL9Qez1Bn

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) March 6, 2016

I will stand on it with a pitchfork and a shotgun

The Midwest is on the verge of forming an anti-Trump wall: https://t.co/bOQ5nu65gk

— FiveThirtyEight (@FiveThirtyEight) March 5, 2016

The Secret Life

Even better than I remembered.

(Link)

Botanic gardens

Other nice places like this in the region:

• Perdana Botanical Park, Kuala Lumpur
• Botanic Gardens, Penang
• Jurong Bird Park, Singapore

Nemesis

Despite the enormous level of well-deserved hype surrounding the Warriors, the surprising truth is the Spurs have been winning at a higher clip since Dec. 2 (.884 winning percentage compared with .878) while proving to be the superior defensive team. The Spurs are not only tops in the NBA when it comes to defending (96.2 points allowed per 100 possessions), but also significantly ahead of the fifth-rated Warriors (101.6).

(link)

Well there's your problem

You might wonder whether this sort of thing always happens during a nomination campaign. The short answer is that it doesn’t. By comparison, 79 percent of Democrats this year have said they’d be satisfied with Hillary Clinton as their nominee, while 62 percent have said so of Bernie Sanders.

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Yeah! End the Schengen Agreement! (What's the Schengen Agreement?)

“It is time for the European Union to suspend the Schengen Agreement,” says @Judy_Dempsey: https://t.co/OlMeRfMjO9

— Carnegie Endowment (@CarnegieEndow) March 4, 2016

Nemesis

Spurs Clinch 19th Straight Playoff Berth

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At 52-9, this is our best record EVER through 61 games. #GoSpursGo

— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) March 4, 2016

55-5 - OKC wondering where it all started to go wrong...

Golden State improves to 55-5 (.917) on the season, the NBA's best record through the season's first 60 games.

— GSWStats (@gswstats) March 4, 2016

Warriors have tied the NBA record regular-season home winning streak, earning their 44th consecutive regular-season home win tonight.

— GSWStats (@gswstats) March 4, 2016

Smart boy

If (for instance) Trump has won 37 of 50 states and 49.9 percent of delegates going into the convention, then technically Republicans might be able to deny him the nomination. For that matter, technically they’d be able to deny Trump the nomination even if he had a delegate majority by changing the rules at the last minute.

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54-5 - no Curry, no Iguodala, no problem

Golden State improves to 54-5 (.915) on the season, the best record in NBA history through the season's first 59 games.

— GSWStats (@gswstats) March 2, 2016

Thank you

Me:  someone should write a thing about how good Marcus Camby was.
Internet:  done

I miss Grantland.