I decided I’m keeping my t.v. off today. It’s just going to make me more irritated and annoyed. Barack Obama being black has nothing or very little to do with anything!
Yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr Day.
He said: “I have a dream that one day people would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the conduct of their character.”
Hello people “not be judged by the color of their skin” Hello? Anyone home? Him being black (which he’s 50% or less) is judging him on that fact alone!
Hello people “but by the conduct of their character.” Hello? Anyone home? His character sucks!
I guess people don’t get it? The news, not even supposed “conservative news” Fox News gets it!
No, I’m sorry I don’t agree that this is a great day in American history in any regards!
Even politicians who I respect for the most part are saying it is!
No, I’m not racist. I’m not going to join in the American celebration today. If it makes me lose readers on my blog. I don’t care. I still have my freedom of speech rights. You don’t have to agree with me.
Barack Obama was voted the most liberal senator in Washington. It takes a lot to be voted with this title! His friends like Rev Wright and William Ayers and Tony Rezco are scary. His chief of staff Rham Emmanuel creeps me out and mailed a dead fish to a news anchor? I’ve heard he’s Palestinian too!
Barack Obama has supported abortion and partial abortion majorly in his short term as senator. He voted for partial birth abortion three times! He has also voted against a law that supports a baby who survives an abortion!
He has mocked the word of God. You can find this on YouTube! Originally on the news! He has very liberal stances in many regards!
I’m not celebrating today! I’m praying! I believe Barack Obama is not “hope” or “change” but God’s judgment on America! This is why I beleive he is there!
He is a hypocrite doing everything he criticized Bush for. He wants to put us in about another trillion dollars in debt! By bailing out (governemnt taking over) more businesses and banks. This will weaken our dollar further! he hasd expressed raising taxes on some. This will destroy our already fragile economy!
And no I do not believe the Civil Rights movement is accomplished now! I believe this enhances “the black movement”. We are considered a racist just for not liking him! Give me a break?
What other supposed hate crimes are on the way, especially for Christians? This really concerns and bothers me! I feel grieved in my spirit about it!
If we want a black presidnet. Alan Keyes would have been a much better option! Who holds onto moral and biblical values!
No, I’m not a racist. But, just like Martin Luther King I’m not going to judge a man solely on their skin color but by the conduct of their character!
(If your a Christian and disappointed like I am just remember our promises we have in the word of God! and remember God is in control!)
My friend posted this as a blog I have more readers I wanted to get the truth out too!
Another friend forwarded this to my email a few months ago!
Who is Barack Obama?
Probable US. presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu , Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., who was a black MUSLIM from Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white ATHEIST from Wichita, Kansas ..
Obama’s parents met at the University of Hawaii. When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His father returned to Kenya. His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a RADICAL Muslim from Indonesia. When Obama was 6 years old, the family relocated to Indonesia. Obama attended a MUSLIM school in Jakarta. He also spent two years in a Catholic school.
Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim. He is quick to point out that, “He was once a Muslim, but that he also attended Catholic school.” He does not say the Pledge of Allegiance, sing the National Anthem, nor put his hand over his heart when others pledge or sing..
Obama’s political handlers are attempting to make it appear that Obama’s introduction to Islam came via his father, and that this influence was temporary at best. In reality, the senior Obama returned to Kenya soon after the divorce, and never again had any direct influence over his son’s education.
Lolo Soetoro, the second husband of Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson to Islam. Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta.
Wahabism is the RADICAL teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the Western world. Since it is politically expedient to be a CHRISTIAN when seeking major public office in the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background. ALSO, keep in mind that when he was sworn into office he DID NOT use the Holy Bible, but instead the Koran (their equivalency to our Bible, but very different beliefs).
Let us all remain alert concerning Obama’s expected presidential candidacy. The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the U.S. from the inside out, so what better way to start than at the highest level — through the President of the United States, one of their own!!!
If it comes down to being between him or Hillary, then we REALLY are between a rock and a hard place.
Here are Coke facts that may make you think secondly about drinking a Coke! I like Coke, but I don’t know anymore!
COKE
* In many states the highway patrol carries two gallons of Coke in the trunk to remove blood from the highway after a car accident. * You can put a T-bone steak in a bowl of Coke and it will be gone in two days. * To clean a toilet: Pour a can of Coca-Cola into the toilet bowl and let the “real thing” sit for one hour, then flush clean. The citric acid in Coke removes stains from vitreous china. * To remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers: Rub the bumper with a rumpled-up piece of aluminum foil dipped in Coca-Cola. * To clean corrosion from car battery terminals: Pour a can of Coca-Cola over the terminals to bubble away the corrosion. * To loosen a rusted bolt: Applying a cloth soaked in Coca-Cola to the rusted bolt for several minutes. * To bake a moist ham: Empty a can of Coca-Cola into the baking pan, wrap the ham in aluminum foil, and bake. Thirty minutes before the ham is finished, remove the foil, allowing the drippings to mix with the Coke for a sumptuous brown gravy. * To remove grease from clothes: Empty a can of Coke into a load of greasy clothes, add detergent, and run through a regular cycle. The Coca-Cola will help loosen grease stains. * Coke will also clean road haze from your windshield. * FOR YOUR INFORMATION: * The active ingredient in Coke is phosphoric acid. Its pH is 2.8. It will dissolve a nail in about four days. Phosphoric acid also leaches calcium from bones and is a major contributor to the rising increase in osteoporosis. * To carry Coca-Cola syrup (the concentrate) the commercial truck must use the “Hazardous Material” place cards reserved for highly corrosive materials. * The distributors of Coke have been using it to clean the engines of their trucks for about 20 years!
WATER
* 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. (This likely applies to half the world population.) * In 37% of Americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is often mistaken for hunger. * Even MILD dehydration will slow down one’s metabolism as much as 3%. * One glass of water will shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied (in a University of Washington study). * Lack of water is the 1 trigger of daytime fatigue. * Preliminary research indicates that 8 to 10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers. * A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or on a printed page. * Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45%, plus it can slash the risk of breast cancer by 79%, and one is 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer.
I thought this article was very interesting! I always wondered how the internet came about! I wish when I was about 11-13 when the internet, when the internet first started I would have told my parents to invest in domains such as buyonline.com, because in about 5-10 years, we’ll be making thousands and millions! That particular domain sold for $1.2 million!
Who ‘created’ the Internet? It’s a tangled web
Friday, October 20, 2000
By DAVID L. CHANDLER THE BOSTON GLOBE
–> –> –>merge–>
–> –> –> All right, let’s get this straight: Who really did create the Internet? Vice President Al Gore has been the butt of endless jokes for having taken credit for it. But what is the real story? –>
All right, let’s get this straight: Who really did create the Internet?
Vice President Al Gore has been the butt of endless jokes for having taken credit for it. But what is the real story?
Unfortunately, although the question is simple and straightforward, the answer is not. Gore did provide early support for the technology — even if he puffed up his role — but computer pioneers can’t even agree on exactly what the Internet is, let alone who created it.
Most historical accounts say the Internet was created in 1969, when the first network of widely separated computers was set up by the Defense Department to aid in computer research. It was called the ARPANET, and it was created by scientists at Bolt Beranek & Newman, or BB&N, in Cambridge, Mass., and at Stanford University, based on concepts described earlier by Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists J.C.R. Licklider and Leonard Kleinrock (and a few others).
Well, in a historical sense, that is a reasonable claim. But it’s also a bit like saying the Interstate Highway System was created by the first Native Americans who blazed some of the trails the highways would later follow.
Some accounts suggest Robert Kahn of BB&N and Vinton Cerf of Stanford really laid the groundwork for the Internet explosion. The two computer scientists, who joined forces at the Advanced Research Programs Agency (the ARPA in ARPANET) spent most of the 1970s developing the transmission system for sending data between different networks of computers that were running incompatible operating systems.
The system (or rather systems) they developed, called TCP/IP (for Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol), was the technical achievement that made the Internet as we know it possible.
At the time, it was just a small network connecting relatively few huge university and research computers. Nobody foresaw the explosion of personal computers that was about to unfold.
But when most people think of the Internet, what they really have in mind is a combination of electronic mail (which evolved separately, and the World Wide Web (which came along much later, in 1991).
E-mail was developed in the 1970s as a way of sending messages within a company’s or laboratory’s internal computer network, and then was adapted to send messages between networks as well. But for the first two decades or so, it functioned much as the earliest telephones did.
There was a time when there were numerous telephone companies, each with their own wires and phones, none of them interconnected. If you wanted to be able to place calls to people on different systems, you needed a separate phone and telephone line for each one. In the early days of e-mail, people had exactly the same problem: many different e-mail systems, each using different software.
Gradually, “gateways” were created to allow people to send mail from one system to another. But it wasn’t until the 1990s that virtually all e-mail began to flow through the Internet, using the now-standard “@” symbol followed by an Internet domain name (a naming system adopted in 1984) to define their addresses. That convention, and especially the ubiquitous @ sign, are credited to Ray Tomlinson of BB&N, who wrote one of the pioneering e-mail programs in 1972.
Through the 1980s and early 1990s, as personal computers soared from a curiosity owned mostly by techie hobbyists and a few companies to a widespread commodity, anyone wanting to link a computer to a network had to choose from among the many private network systems available — Delphi, CompuServe, Prodigy, Genie, Bix and a host of others. None allowed any connection to the world outside the individual network and its subscribers.
In addition, the Internet was still strictly limited to use on college campuses and in research labs.
What changed?
That’s where Al Gore comes in.
Gore was widely credited in histories written long before the vice president’s oft-derided comment that he “took the initiative in creating the Internet.”
Gore is credited by the technological cognoscenti for having sponsored legislation that helped launch the expansion of the fledgling Internet to ever-wider uses. As early as 1986, Gore articulated a vision of widespread connected computing, and later introduced a follow-up bill to expand access to the network.
None of these histories comes close to giving him credit for the “creation” of the Internet. One account, written by Vinton Cerf, states: “I think the vice president is very deserving of credit for his active support for the Internet and the businesses that depend on it daily.”
But the person responsible for what most people think of as “the Internet” came along even later in the process. Until 1991, the only ways to use the Internet (other than for sending e-mail) were to use programs such as FTP (File Transfer Protocol). This allowed you to “log on” to another computer, and then to download files. But first, you had to know the exact “domain name” or address of the computer you wanted to access. You also had to have an account name and password for that specific computer.
Then came Tim Berners-Lee, a computer programmer at the European Center for Particle Research, or CERN, in Geneva. He devised a system that would allow people to access information simply by clicking on a “link” within a document_ The link itself would contain all the necessary information about where the file was, so that, from the user’s point of view, it made no difference if the file were coming from a computer down the hall or around the world.
That breakthrough concept was something Berners-Lee, now a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, dubbed the World Wide Web, or WWW. It was he who created the system of Internet addresses that begin with the now-familiar “http://” (which stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol) and the language used to create Web pages, HTML (or HyperText Markup Language).
That system was finalized in 1991, which in practical terms can be thought of as the birth of the Internet as we know it today. The ban on commercial use was finally lifted later that year.
OK, so who was the “creator” of the Internet? Cerf himself describes it thus: “I consider Bob Kahn and myself to be the principal fathers of the specific design, but we were very dependent on the work of others.”
In short, Cerf says, “I don’t think it makes sense to give any one person such a title.”
No one has ever accused Cincinnati of being too cosmopolitan. During the past fifteen years, Larry Flynt, Barnes & Noble, and the curator of a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit have all faced obscenity charges for their activities in the area. In the sporting world, hometown legends Pete Rose and Marge Schott were nationally disgraced for gambling and racist comments, respectively. More recently, race riots and police beatings have polarized the city and further tarnished its reputation. Perhaps as a result, Cincinnati keeps losing people to its suburbs: in the past fifty years, the city’s population dropped from over 500,000 to just 323,000, while the thirteen-county metropolitan area has doubled to 2 million people.
Over the past several years, however, Cincinnati has shed its close-minded image and begun to revitalize its center city—focusing on strategies of broad appeal to make those who already live in its metropolitan orb think about moving back to the city.
Cincinnati—cosmopolitan? You better believe it.
A New City Emerges
A theater, two museums, and two stadiums have anchored the city’s transformation. In 1995, the Aronoff Center for the Arts, designed by Cesar Pelli, became the first new performing arts venue in downtown Cincinnati since Memorial Hall was built in 1908. Last year, the Contemporary Arts Center—the same institution that hosted Mapplethorpe in 1990—was reincarnated by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid. The New York Times calls her work “the most important American building to be completed since the end of the Cold War.” (The Center’s spring exhibits contained material as provocative as Mapplethorpe’s, but no one cares to press charges these days.)
Meanwhile, two blocks south of the central business district and along the banks of the Ohio River, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center opened in August and is expected to draw over 300,000 visitors annually. The museum is flanked by two new stadiums: one hosts the turnaround Bengals franchise, and the other hosts the Cincinnati Reds. To improve the connection between downtown and the new riverfront, city planners lowered Interstate-71 below grade. Without the obstruction of a major highway, pedestrians and cars can now move seamlessly and have better view corridors to the river.
Just beyond downtown, the University of Cincinnati has begun to implement its much-lauded master plan, razing much of its central campus to make way for green space, student housing, and new academic and support facilities. The school has recently completed buildings by high-profile architects Frank Gehry, Peter Eisenmann, and Michael Graves, and its new student center, designed by Thom Mayne of Morphosis, is under construction. Throughout the process, the university has engaged its neighborhood and even supported local groups’ development plans with low-interest loans. As a result, the university has better integrated itself and its students into Cincinnati urban life.
Spurred by these catalyst projects, new construction in Cincinnati’s center city is on the rise. The first new downtown office tower in over ten years broke ground in January. At 180,000 square feet, the project will cost $63 million. In the residential market, developers struggle to keep pace with demand for loft conversions and new condominiums. Since 2001, they have spent $35 million rehabilitating and building new housing downtown. According to Downtown Cincinnati, Inc., the number of downtown market-rate units has increased 30 percent in the past five years to 2,767 units, and 341 additional condo units will soon supplement the 166 condos already on the market. It seems that there’s little need to worry about market saturation: more than half are pre-sold. Arn Bortz, a local developer with Towne Properties, credits the brisk sales to low interest rates and a diverse supply of units: “You can find new condos for as little as $79,000, or high-end units with all the bells and whistles for over ten times that amount. The majority, however, fall in the low- to mid-200s.”
In response to its positive changes, Cincinnati has received national recognition. Earlier this year, Partners for Livable Communities named Cincinnati one of the “Most Livable Cities” for its affordability, quality of life, and investments in creativity. And in April, Esquire magazine placed Cincinnati 7th in the “Top 10 Cities that Rock” based on its thriving independent music scene.
Wake up, Richard Florida—this is the Midwest!
Some may attribute Cincinnati’s recent improvements to Richard Florida’s “creative class” theory. His premise is relevant: growth has depended in part on the city’s ventures into arts, theater, and music. The Contemporary Arts Center, Aronoff Center, and independent music scene all attract the creative class.
Yet Cincinnati ranks only 33rd of the top 50 cities on Florida’s Creativity Index. The reasons for its low ranking are pretty clear. At the heart of the matter, Cincinnatians differ from residents of large cities along the coasts. They are less interested in the progressive agendas of Florida and his followers than in basic quality-of-life issues and traditional Middle American values. While Cincinnatians enjoy the arts and theater, they also love old-fashioned attractions like sports, beer, barbecues, and outdoor festivals—Oktoberfest, the Black Family Reunion, and Jammin’ on Main, to name a few. Given these priorities, the city has not focused on attracting people with diverse or gay and lesbian lifestyles. Nor is it a haven for high-tech industries: Fortune 500 companies headquartered downtown include corporate giants like Kroger, Procter & Gamble, Fifth Third Bank, Federated Department Stores, and American Financial Group.
In a region where suburbanites outnumber city dwellers five to one, the city has prioritized improvements that everyone can share: clean streets, a variety of amenities, and more jobs. The aim is to engage not only the creative class who helped build a thriving downtown but also the numerous suburban neighbors who will help sustain it.
City officials have recognized that continued development in the center city depends heavily on its ability to attract a wide range—not just one type—of residents and visitors. According to City Council Member John Cranley, Florida’s thesis “is so cliché; we’re not targeting anyone—young professionals, empty nesters, or the ‘creative class.’” In downtown Cincinnati, he says, “we’re creating a great product.”
A Great Product
Despite its departures from the theory of the creative class, Cincinnati’s economic development is progressing successfully. The Cincinnati center city Development Corporation, or 3CDC, is leading the way. Formed in late-2003, this non-profit, privately-funded corporation, in the words of its CEO, Stephen Leeper, seeks “to develop a vibrant urban core with exciting retail, residential, and entertainment options that attract residents and out-of-town visitors.”
With widespread support, the 3CDC has secured substantial funding for future projects. The City of Cincinnati has earmarked $100 million over the next five years, private businesses have promised $50 million, and the federal government recently awarded $50 million in New Markets Tax Credits.
The 3CDC will use the collective funds to target three geographic areas: Fountain Square, the Banks, and Over-the-Rhine. Fountain Square, the heart of Cincinnati, is a public plaza that has obstructed connections between entertainment, retail, and office space since its redesign in the 1970s. The 3CDC plans to restore this common space so it supports civic gatherings and reconnects the surrounding uses. Bill Moran, the Vice President for Real Estate at Fifth Third Bank, works at the company’s headquarters directly on Fountain Square. He believes that infrastructure improvements are the first step in encouraging “a viable, 24-hour destination where people come to live, meet, and hang out after a ball game. At the same time, the office market will grow, and the possibilities will be endless.”
South of the central business district, the undeveloped land between the stadiums is known as The Banks. Although it is prime real estate, developers are reluctant to invest due to the significant cost of underground and utility infrastructure needed to clear the flood plain. To complicate matters, the Port Authority owns the land, the city owns the air rights, and the county holds the leases for the parking. Nonetheless, the 3CDC hopes to facilitate the development of a mixed-use community within the next two to three years.
Over-the-Rhine (OTR), just north of the central business district, holds the greatest opportunities for transformation because of its decayed housing stock. A century ago, OTR was a highly-desirable and vibrant neighborhood of 40,000 people. By 2000, however, only 7,422 residents remained, with 79 percent of the families living in poverty. The epicenter of the 2001 riots, OTR has led the city in crime for years. And it has long been separated from downtown, both economically and physically, by the Central Parkway, a six-lane boulevard. But now, planners and business leaders recognize that for downtown to be safe, clean, and economically viable, OTR must also be safe, clean, and economically viable. The 3CDC has prioritized development in the area and set as its goal an “economically and racially diverse, mixed-use neighborhood.” Its first initiative is already underway: the Gateway Project, a $7.5 million development of 25 condos on the border between OTR and the central business district, received a $2.5 million grant from the city and an additional $3.8 million in loans from public agencies. Planners hope it will stimulate further development of OTR’s charming but neglected housing stock. The inclusion of the OTR in the planning process represents a dramatic shift in thinking—just one of the many fresh ideas transforming downtown Cincinnati.
Mark Twain once said, “When the world ends, I want to be in Cincinnati, because everything happens there ten years later.” For better or worse, Twain’s words no longer apply. Cincinnati will never top Richard Florida’s Creative Index—but then again, it doesn’t want to. Instead, Cincinnati is quickly becoming the cosmopolitan heart of its region by building a city that attracts a wide range of people—including decidedly non-”Creative Class” Midwestern suburbanites.
REFERENCES
Downtown Cincinnati, Inc
gototown.comCincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC)
I found this site of many pictures of the city I live in Cincinnati, Ohio, great picture gallery of every major tourist place and neighborhood! I like this site!
Today (well actually yesterday now, it is after midnight here now) was my mom’s birthday, she lives in Williams, AZ. A small town in northern Arizona west of Flagstaff.
Well, I thought I’d post this! I love facts anyways!
Important Events on March the 27th:
1512 – Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon sights Fla
1625 – Charles I King of England Scotland & Ireland ascends to throne
1794 – Pres Washington & Congress creates US Navy
1802 – Pallas (asteroid) discovered by Heinrich Olbers
1807 – Vesta (asteroid) discovered by OLbers
1836 – 1st Mormon temple dedicated in Kirtland Ohio
1855 – Abraham Gesner receives a patent for kerosene
1860 – ML Byrn patents corkscrew (NY)
1912 – 1st Japanese cherry trees planted in Wash DC
1917 – Seattle Metropolitans 1st US team to win Stanley Cup beat Canadiens
1933 – Farm Credit Administration (US) authorized
1945 – Gen Eisenhower declared German defenses on Western Front broken
1958 – Khrushchev became Soviet premier & 1st sect of Communist Party
1964 – Earthquake strikes Alaska – 8.4 on Richter scale – 100 die
1968 – Japanese Trade & Cultural Center (Japan Center) dedicated
1968 – Yuri Gagarin – 1st man to orbit Earth & Seryogin died in a plane crash
1972 – Venera 8 launched to Venus
1977 – 582 die in aviation’s worst disaster KLM 747-Pan Am 747 crash
1977 – Diana Hyland dies at 40
1980 – Mt. St. Helens becomes active after 123 years
1986 – Disney-MGM Studio Tour groundbreaking
1785 – Louis XVII, pretender to the throne during French Rev
1813 – Nathaniel Currier, lithographer (Currier & Ives)
1845 – Wilhelm Rontgen, discovered X-rays (Nobel 1901)
1847 – Otto Wallach, German chemist (Nobel 1910)
1863 – Sir Henry Royce, Rolls-Royce founder
1871 – Heinrich Mann, German novelist & essayist
1879 – Edward Steichen, pioneered American photography
1892 – Ferde Grofe, composer
1899 – Gloria Swanson, actress (Sadie Thomson, Queen Kelly)
1901 – Sato Eisaku, (Lib), Japanese PM (1964-72) (Nobel 1974)
1903 – Walt Kiesling, NFL guard, coach
1912 – James Callaghan, (Labour), British PM (1976-79)
1914 – Budd Schulberg, author
1914 – Snooky Lanson
1917 – Cyrus R. Vance, Sec of State
1924 – Sarah Vaughn, Newark NJ, jazz singer
1927 – Anthony Lewis, Newspaper columnist
1934 – Arthur Mitchell, choreographer
1939 – Cale Yarborough, auto racer
1942 – Michael York, actor (Cabaret)
1952 – Maria Schneider, Last Tango in Paris
1953 – Annemarie Proell, Alpine skier
1956 – Brian Kelly, CFL wide receiver (Edmonton Eskimos)
Anyone who gets to know me well will find out there’s not much sports I get into or not many teams I get into. I have my favorite sports teams in all of the major sports, but I don’t watch many games, I just follow standings unless it’s the playoffs or Superbowl or World Series or something. And not any sport I like to watch as much as basketball and not really any team I really get into like the Phoenix Suns in the NBA. I’ve been a fan since I was 10! I’ve been waiting years to get a championship! They’ve gone far and into the playoffs many years and have had great teams but never got that lucrative championship! Been to the finals twice in their history! Last year they went really far into the playoffs without one of their stars Amare Stoudemire a lot further then anyone expected or predicted! This year they have all their stars from last year and more stars, this year their even a better deeper team and a lot better defensively! They’ve been on a role many times this year! They only seem to stink up when Steve Nash their point guard and star is injured, they need him, his assists and his team play jut helps majorly! Which might make him get a third year in a row MVP this year! This year really might be their year! Come playoff time I’m really going to watch, pay attention and get excited!
I grew up in Phoenix being that I moved to Cincinnati, Ohio in July you might think I can’t watch many games like I used to because in Phoenix a local UPN channel KUTP 45 carries a lot of games, but that is not been the case! I get Direct TV and get the NBA package! Of course I still get busy and can’t watch all the time but come playoff time! I read this on the web posted February 5th, yeah that’s what I’m talking about!
Suns Believe They Can Run All The Way To The Finals
The numbers are staggering. Two winning streaks of at least 15 games. A 20-1 record against the Eastern Conference. An 8½-game lead in the Pacific Division. A winning percentage of .800.
By any measure, the Phoenix Suns are blazing a trail through the 2006-07 season that few teams have ever traversed.
But as daunting as the arrival of Steve Nash and his running partners are in an opponent’s locker room, the challenge the Suns face in graduating from regular-season carnival act to NBA champion is equally onerous. For all that the Suns have dazzled under coach Mike D’Antoni’s European-flavored run-and-gun system — leading the league in scoring for the third consecutive season, winning at a pace that could secure homecourt advantage throughout the Western Conference playoffs for the second time in three years — Phoenix has to prove its style can win in June. Indeed, the past two seasons have seen the Suns stopped in the conference finals by the Spurs and Mavericks, respectively. Further, the recent body of NBA evidence doesn’t lead one to conclude titles are won with flash.
Over the last three campaigns, defense has won the day. The Pistons of 2003-04 and the Spurs of ‘04-05 each led the league in scoring defense en route to the trophy, while last season’s Heat team was second in that category in the playoffs.
D’Antoni, now in his fourth season in the desert, believes a win in the Finals isn’t a matter of style as much as timing.
“Two years ago the geniuses said this system wouldn’t work through December,” D’Antoni said. “Then [after a 62-win regular season] it was, ‘It’s definitely not going to work in the playoffs,’ and that Memphis would sweep us. Well, we swept them. Then it was, ‘It’s not going to work against Dallas.’ Well, we beat them 4-2. Then it was, ‘It won’t work the next year without Amaré [Stoudemire]‘. Well, it did work. So now until we win the Finals, it will be, ‘Well, it doesn’t work in the Finals.’
“Give me a break. It doesn’t work in the Finals because there are other great teams and other great players. If we hit the right shots and get lucky, we can win it all.”
Every champion needs its steppingstone, every Bulls needs its Pistons. But the Suns face a conference with a host of accomplished rivals — three alone in Texas — every bit as talented as D’Antoni’s group. And unlike an entire conference of Eastern teams too bogged down by its own inconsistent play to slow down the Suns, the West’s likely playoff participants know this Phoenix team like a next-door neighbor. And if this season’s results are any measure, it appears they want the lawn mower back; the Suns entered Thursday’s matchup with San Antonio a combined 0-6 against the Mavs, Spurs, Jazz and Lakers.
Truth be told, though, all but one of the losses came in the opening weeks of the season, when Phoenix was getting reacquainted with Stoudemire after the 24-year-old big man missed all but three games in ‘05-06 while recuperating from microfracture knee surgery. His presence, and return to playing 31 minutes a game, has given Phoenix a boost defensively, helping the Suns rank 13th in the league in defensive field-goal percentage, an improvement from 17th last season. That growth has been obscured, though, by the Suns’ fast pace, which provides both teams more chances to score, and hence, more points.
“Our goal is to play a little bit better defense than the team we’re playing,” D’Antoni said during the Suns’ recent trip to New York. “If we score more points than them, then that means that we played better defense, and we’re doing it a lot of the time. … We don’t have strength in a lot of places and we don’t overpower people defensively, but if you watch [us] skating around, [we] are playing good team defense.”
With perhaps the best defensive team of D’Antoni’s tenure, a 36-9 start, Stoudemire’s return to good health and the sublime play of two-time MVP Nash, the championship window has never seemed more open in Phoenix.
“We want to win it now; that was our goal coming into the season,” said Raja Bell, Nash’s backcourt mate. “We understand we were real close last year minus an injury or two. [But] there’s always a little luck that goes into it, so if it’s not your year, it’s not your year.”
Just how many years this Phoenix unit has, though, is in question, as Nash reaches further into his mid-30s — with a notoriously balky back. A rotation that is effectively only eight deep doesn’t figure to help ease the burden on Nash or his teammates. Nonetheless, Nash, who hasn’t missed more than seven games since the ‘00-01 season, doesn’t seem concerned.
“We feel like there’s no reason we can’t be a great team next year,” Nash said. “[But] we aren’t looking at the future. We’re looking at this year, not because of any window but because of the opportunity in front of us. … The return of Amare has helped combined with having a better understanding of what we’re trying to do and when we’re at our best.”
For a club that averages 111.6 points, the Suns are at their best not merely because they run. Heck, even the woebegone Grizzlies run nowadays. But when the Suns take off, they do so with five players who average better than 15 points. They do so shooting 50 percent as a team. And they do so averaging more assists than any team in the NBA.
“[Our success] doesn’t have anything to do with the system,” D’Antoni said. “We have the personnel to fit this type of style. …With Steve, and Amare and Shawn [Marion], we’re able to go back to a fast-breaking, more wide-open kind of game that everybody played in the ’70s and ’80s. That system worked because everybody played it. Nobody plays this way [anymore].”
And should this attack — which strives to shoot with 14 clicks left on the shot clock while forcing an opponent to decide whether to stick to its defensive principles or try to outshoot the Suns — falter again this year, D’Antoni is ready to retool the best way he knows how.
