Back to the old balls

(I recently joined this site as a contributor, so you'll be seeing the occasional basketball opinion here. )

The NBA -- David Stern, that is -- told the league's players that they would get the old leather balls back starting January 1st.

Reaction was muted snark. Mavs owner Mark Cuban:

"They scrapped it?" Cuban said in an e-mail. "I guess if I have to hear about a final decision in the media that says it all. I guess I missed the class where they were discussing the pros and cons of the new ball and the impact of making a change midseason."

Celtics coach Doc Rivers:

"It's just like the park. That's what it's going to feel like. Whoever brings the ball on Jan. 1, that's the one we're going to play with."

Clippers coach Mike Dunleavy:

"When they told me they were going back to the old ball, I said I've never brought this point up, but I know this: if you bounce it straight down, that thing will not come up in a straight line. You have to play like you're playing at the old Boston Garden, looking for those dead bounces. You just have to be sure you have to keep the ball close to the ground."

Lebron James:

"I'm very excited. You see my smile, right? If we've got practice tomorrow, I'll be shooting with that (old) ball tomorrow."

Tim Duncan:

"They should have done a little more testing the first time so we wouldn't have had to go through this. Hopefully, they have corrected their mistake, and everything will be good."

Paul Pierce:

"The players, it was just tough on them because I think (the NBA) kind of just sprung the ball on the players instead of giving them fair warning."

Pierce was the player's representative when the new ball was introduced last summer. At that time he predicted turnovers would be down this season because of the new ball. They have been, but that couldn't outweigh things like the fact that it gets slippery when wet, sticks to the rim, lodges between the rim and backboard more frequently and actually dries out players' hands to the point they suffer cuts on their fingers.

PETA, I suspect, will be pissed by this flip-flop.

A touch of bloggerhea

-- Two new blogs of special note: Bonddad has his own place, and so does the esteemed former Majority Leader of the US House of Representatives, Tom DeLay. Well, he did for awhile anyway. Thanks to the magic of the Google you can still read it, including all 100+ comments he received before someone shut it down for him.

-- Gasoline prices continue to rise during the holiday season, baffling "experts". The Chronic also weighs in to tell us it's no big deal (yet, they helpfully caution).

-- The Big Dog came to San Antone yesterday for Ciro. B and B has pictures and Muse has video. Election Day for TX-23 is tomorrow.

-- The Houston Texans 2006 draft theory was disproved in the laboratory yesterday. Twice. I would have paid the value of a luxury box for the season just to see the look on Bob McNair's face when VY scored the game-winning touchdown.

Ten more years of in-his-face just like yesterday. Maybe twelve, maybe fifteen.

-- An iconic piece of Houston's East End gets ready for a little makeover. And also underground downtown, and in the Village as well.

-- Smoke-filled rooms in Washington die hard (if they die at all).

-- Financial wisdom I may be beating Bonddad to: consider turning your IRA into a Roth. Really.

-- Some good Sunday Funnies here.

Off we go

up into the wild black yonder ...

Get up early tomorrow, go outside, look at the planets

Stargazers will get a rare triple planetary treat this weekend with Jupiter, Mercury and Mars appearing to nestle together in the pre-dawn skies. About 45 minutes before dawn on Sunday those three planets will be so close that the average person's thumb can obscure all three from view.

They will be almost as close together on Saturday and Monday, but Sunday they will be within one degree of each other in the sky. Three planets haven't been that close since 1925, said Miami Space Transit Planetarium director Jack Horkheimer.

And it won't happen again until 2053, he said.

"Jupiter will be very bright and it will look like it has two bright lights next to it, and they won't twinkle because they're planets," said Horkheimer, host of the television show Star Gazer. "This is the kind of an event that turns young children into Carl Sagans."

...

The way to find the planets, which will be low on the east-southeast horizon, is to hold your arm straight out, with your hand in a fist and the pinky at the bottom. Halfway up your fist is how high the planets will appear above the horizon, Nichols said.

Jupiter will be white, Mercury pinkish and Mars butterscotch-colored.

"It is a lovely demonstration of the celestial ballet that goes on around us, day after day, year after year, millennium after millennium," said Horkheimer. "When I look at something like this, I realize that all the powers on Earth, all the emperors, all the money, cannot change it one iota. We are observers, but the wonderful part of that is that we are the only species on this planet that can observe it and understand it."

Moneyshot Quotes of the Week

"I, for one, am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way being blown up by the same bombs day after day."

"That is absurd. It may even be criminal."

-- Gordon Smith, the latest Republican Senator to get off the Kool-Aid

"It's bad in Iraq. That help?" (heh-heh-heh)

-- Bush, when asked by a British reporter if he was 'still in denial about how bad things are in Iraq'

"It shocked me that (the Astros) would not continue to go up, when the Yankees continued to push and push and pursue and they (the Astros) really didn't do much."

-- Andy Pettitte, pissing and moaning about his $16 million contract with the New York Yankees. The Houston Astros offered him $12 million.

"The absence of the estimated 1.4 million undocumented immigrants in Texas in fiscal 2005 would have been a loss to our gross state product of $17.7 billion."

-- Texas comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn

"You have these cheap shots coming at you, but you still need to move forward. Obviously, when people are spreading falsehoods and lying about your character and who you are, it's much more aggravating. ... If you lose by one point in a game, you can look back on every single play of the game ... (one) can say, 'gosh darn, if we only had made that block, if we only didn't jump off-sides, if we only had recovered that fumble, if we hadn't thrown that interception. If the referees didn't screw us on that play.' "

-- former Senator George Allen of Virginia, on why he lost

"I just didn't feel there today, the president in his words or his demeanor, that he is going to do anything right away to change things drastically. He is tepid in what he talks about doing. Someone has to get the message to this man that there have to be significant changes."

-- Senate Majority Leader-elect Harry Reid, after an Oval Office meeting

"Nope, nobody sang 'Kumbaya'."

-- outgoing UN ambassador John Bolton, asked about a 'healing process' with outgoing UN Sec.-Gen. Kofi Annan at a White House dinner attended by both