Great Article About Understanding Allen Iverson

Understanding Allen Iverson on Allen Iverson’s Terms:

You know those glow sticks they give little kids on Halloween? With the neon goo inside? Where you and I have blood, Iverson has that glowing stuff pumping through him. He’s just on fire, all the time. If you could spread that magical juice throughout your roster, you’d win the title every year—talent and size be damned.

But as it is, Allen Iverson has two gallons of it, and most people don’t even have a teaspoon. There’s your trouble. Hmm… it’s a game won by the best team… so what do you there? Through most of his career, Allen Iverson has known what to do there: win the damn game himself. He can see how and where the fire is burning, and by comparison it’s almost all in him.

Daily Brief: 2006 Sept 05: Penn State, Macs, & Wishing Stars

The Quotable Joe Paterno

The raindrops keep falling on Joe Pa’s head:

The 79-year-old coach refuses to wear a hat, insisting he would look ridiculous. Asked if he would wear one if members of the media chipped in to buy him a hat, Paterno said: “Considering what you guys would probably contribute, no.”

And he still likes coaching football:

More than seven decades after the University of Chicago’s retirement guidelines forced him to step down, the legendary coach is remembered as a football Methuselah, a wrinkled, white-haired man who seemingly patrolled the sidelines forever.

Stagg was 70 and had coached 41 seasons when he left after the 1932 season. Surely, sportswriters noted at the time, no one would ever coach so long at one institution again.

But when he runs onto the Beaver Stadium turf this afternoon for Penn State’s season opener against Akron, 79-year-old Joe Paterno will have caught up to the Grand Old Man of the Midway.

Paterno is in his 41st season as the Nittany Lions’ head coach. That’s the same number of years Stagg (1892-1932) served at Chicago.

…

“I just want to get on with this season,” Paterno said. “I wouldn’t know whether I tied Stagg’s record for longevity or not. I hadn’t thought about that. Now that you mentioned it is the first time that I knew about it.”

In Other Penn State News

Penn State hates tailgating:

Hoping to cut down on underage drinking and create a safer postgame environment, Penn State is banning alcohol at parking-lot tailgate parties during football games inside Beaver Stadium.

Imbibing before kickoff and after the final whistle, though? Still OK.

Curbing drinking at a football game is like Paterno wearing a hat: It ain’t happening people.

Macintosh!

Mac Rumors: Adobe To Preview Universal Apps Next Week

A “sneak preview” will be shown of some Universal Binary versions of Adobe’s applications according to our source, however it does not appear as though any formal release is imminent.

Maybe new feature previews? That’d be nice. Last statement on release time indicated springish 2007.

Geek Patrol: Mac Performance: From the G3 to the Xeon

Looks at benchmarks from the different processors. With charts!

Politics!

Glenn Greenwald’s in need of a falling star:

If I had one wish, it would be for journalists everywhere to ingest this one extremely simple, undeniable fact — FISA, as written, allows the President to “listen in when Osama bin Laden is calling.” Under the law as it has existed for 28 years, “if al Qaeda is calling into the United States [the President can] know why they’re calling.” The “Terrorist Surveillance Program” doesn’t give the President the power to listen in on those calls because he already has that power under FISA.

Daily Brief: 2006 Sept 01: Sports & Science Friday

Live Science: 100 Years Ago: Football’s First Forward Pass

They called it the “projectile pass” back then.

On Sept. 5, 1906, Saint Louis University’s Bradbury Robinson tossed a pigskin to teammate Jack Schneider. It was a remarkably creative play for the era, one that ultimately became known as the forward pass.

The game was scoreless. According to SLU archives, head coach Eddie Cochems was frustrated with the team’s inability to move the ball. For weeks, they had been secretly practicing this new art of tossing the ball forward from a starting position behind the ear.

And so the football’s first air attack began.

And it started as you might expect, with an incompletion. Under the rules then, the ball was turned over to the opponent, Carroll College.

Live Science: Anger and Hostility May Damage Your Lungs

Researchers studied 670 men age 45 to 86. Initially, they gauged anger and hostility, ranking each man on a scale of 7 to 37. Then they measured lung function—how much air could be blown out in one second—on three separate occasions over an average of eight years.

Lung function was “significantly poorer” at the outset among those deemed more angry and hostile, and it got worse with these men at each examination. The findings held up after controlling for other factors, such as smoking and education, the researchers reported yesterday in the online version of the journal Thorax.

Naturally, in a study from last year:

Anger is good for you, as long as you keep it below a boil, according to new psychology research based on face reading.

New York Times: Greece Shocks U.S. Basketball Team

Fed up with its recent failures, USA Basketball assembled a new program with a new plan and a new coach in Mike Krzyzewski.

The end result was all too familiar.

Greece used a sizzling stretch of shooting across the middle two quarters to turn a 12-point deficit into a 14-point lead, and beat the Americans 101-95 Friday in the semifinals of the world championships.

”To lose any game is a shock to us,” U.S. star Carmelo Anthony said. ”We came in with the mentality to win the game and the gold medal.”

ESPN: Andre Agassi Still Likes To Win

Agassi was not supposed to have a chance against No. 8 seed Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus. This second-round U.S. Open match was supposed to provide the perfect stage for the graying ghost of tennis’ past to yield to the flesh-and-blood of tennis’ future. The tribute speeches had been delivered and folded back into pockets. Glasses were figuratively raised for the final toast.

Seth Wenig/AP Photo Although he went the distance, Agassi improved to 59-0 at the U.S. Open when winning the first two sets.

But Agassi opted to make the evening a competition rather than a ceremonial transition. He prevailed over Baghdatis in a 6-4, 6-4, 3-6, 5-7, 7-5 thriller that surely will take over No. 1 on the list of Rain Delay Replays.

NASA: NASA Chooses Lockheed Martin To Build Orion

NASA chose the prime contractor Thursday for Orion, the shuttle successor that will return astronauts to the Moon.

On Thursday, NASA tapped Lockheed Martin to build its capsule-based Orion vehicle, seen here with circular solar arrays deployed in an artist’s interpretation of a flight to the International Space Station (ISS). Lockheed beat out the joint team of Northrop Grumman and Boeing in the Orion competition.

Like NASA’s current space shuttles, Orion vehicles are expected to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS, but are the core spacecraft for the agency’s Moon goals. The crew capsule will carry four-astronaut teams to launch toward the Moon. A secondary cargo or lunar lander carrier rocket will launch separately for Orion crews to dock with before leaving low-Earth orbit.

And college football kicks into full swing this weekend: Schedule.

In Other News…

Business Week: Nightmare Mortgages

For cash-strapped homeowners, it was a pitch they couldn’t refuse: Refinance your mortgage at a bargain rate and cut your payments in half. New home buyers, stretching to afford something in a super-heated market, didn’t even need to produce documentation, much less a downpayment.

Those who took the bait are in for a nasty surprise. While many Americans have started to worry about falling home prices, borrowers who jumped into so-called option ARM loans have another, more urgent problem: payments that are about to skyrocket.

The option adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) might be the riskiest and most complicated home loan product ever created. With its temptingly low minimum payments, the option ARM brought a whole new group of buyers into the housing market, extending the boom longer than it could have otherwise lasted, especially in the hottest markets. Suddenly, almost anyone could afford a home — or so they thought. The option ARM’s low payments are only temporary. And the less a borrower chooses to pay now, the more is tacked onto the balance.

Quick and the ED: Colleges Giving Even More Financial Aid to Wealthy Students

From 1999 to 2003, private colleges increased the average aid to students from families making less than $20,000 per year from $4,027 to $5,240, an increase of $1,213, or 30%.

During the same time period, private colleges increased the average aid to students from families making more than $100,000 per year from $3,321 to $4,806, an increase of $1,485, or 45%.

High School Coaches Paid More Than Teachers

The Austin American-Statesman ran a series on the pay differences between teachers and coaches.

Apparently coaches are paid more. Who would’ve thought?

King Kaufman says:

Here’s the real reason the coaches get paid so much: They generate more revenue.

I concur, and say good. Whining along the line of “why does the football team get so much attention” is silly. People unrelated to students on the field willingly PAY to see the football team. Multiple times a season!

For The Record

I had the "Massachusetts comebacks" in the "In" section BEFORE the Sox won.

Also, apparently Schilling had his shit stitched to the bone so he could play last night. That's hardcore.

I mean, not that I care about baseball.

So what you're saying is you have a problem that is totally your problem but you'd like to find a way to make that problem my problem.