Draymond Green should cool it

From the East Bay Express:

It was game four of the NBA Finals. The final three minutes of a blowout. Garbage time. That's when LeBron James decided to incite Draymond Green, stepping over the Golden State Warrior while he lay on the ground. How did Green — ever prideful — respond to the King's provocation?

He hit LeBron in the balls.

Referees quickly lit Green up with a flagrant-one foul, a call that does not automatically necessitate a suspension. But, later, the NBA — always eyeing to extend a playoff series, what with the tens of millions of dollars earned with every extra match — banned Green from playing in game five, a callous and petty move by an organization more craven for dollars than fair play. In other words: total bullshit.

The rest is history: The Warriors never recovered from Green's suspension and Andrew Bogut's injury, and they choked a sure-thing back-to-back championship.

But, really, we blame NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, of course: Let the players play!

Rob's comment:

This is way off, not only factually but with the charge that Green was suspended by the NBA because it wanted to make more money on the playoffs. 

In fact committing four flagrant fouls in the NBA playoffs does "necessitate" a suspension (What's wrong with plain old "require"?):

Under league rules, any player who accumulates four flagrant foul points over the course of the playoffs will be automatically suspended for one game, and every additional flagrant foul will result in either a one-game suspension (for a Flagrant Foul 1) or a two-game suspension (for a Flagrant Foul 2).

It's surprising that the Warriors tolerate---even encourage---Green's immature behavior on the basketball court. That suspension probably cost the team the championship last year, since the Warriors were ahead three games to one at the time. 

Green is a great basketball player who's emotionally childish. Surprising that a usually level-headed Steve Kerr doesn't take Green aside and ask him to cool it with the tantrums for the good of the team.

As a Warriors fan, I'm shocked by Green's behavior and that of many other players in the league, who often act up when called for a foul when the instant replay usually shows that their mini-tantrums have no merit.

I don't know how the NBA trains its referees, but it obviously teaches them that part of the job is to take a lot of shit from the league's many prima donna players.

Obama doesn't have to take Bibi's shit anymore

From Harry's Place:

...The big story around this resolution at the moment is that the outgoing Obama administration didn’t veto it. 

Netanyahu has spent the last eight years completely ignoring Obama’s initiatives when it comes to Israeli Palestinian peacemaking, making statements about expanding settlements when American diplomats arrive in the country, campaigning personally in Washington DC against Obama’s Iran deal and involving himself in US Presidential election campaigns against him. In the end it looks like Obama just had enough...

The thing is that Israel gets $3.5 billion a year from the USA and will continue to do so until 2026. They aren’t the enemy. This isn’t really about the United States. This is about Israel and the rest of the world. This resolution passed with 14 members of the security council voting in favour and one abstention. 

Israeli diplomatic activity couldn’t even convince a single member without a veto to vote against it. While it is nice that the Americans have had Israel’s back in the United Nations for the past eight years their veto is not (despite what Bibi may think) a God given right...

See also John Kerry’s dramatic speech attacking Israel’s settlement policy.

From Time Magazine:

Barack Obama Beats Donald Trump as Most Admired Man of 2016

For the ninth year in a row, respondents to a Gallup poll ranked Barack Obama as the most admired man in America.

Among women, Hillary Clinton was the most admired for the 15th year in a row, and the 21st time overall. Since 1993, her first year as First Lady, she has only lost out on the honor three times: in 1995 and 1996, to Mother Teresa, and in 2001, to then-First Lady Laura Bush.

Current First Lady Michelle Obama came in second among women, while Donald Trump came in second among men (15% of respondents mentioned him, compared with the 22% who mentioned Obama and the 12% who picked Clinton). Shortly after the news broke, some have pointed out, Trump tweeted critical remarks about President Obama.

The most admired men and women in Gallup’s poll tend to be the sitting or incoming presidents and first ladies. Trump’s numbers are below then-President-elect Obama’s 32 percent support in 2008, but above then-President-elect George W. Bush’s 5% support in 2000. It’s also three times the support he received in 2015.

Polling took place from Dec. 7 to 11 and included 1,028 adults with a margin of sampling error of ±4 percentage points.

Thanks to democratic underground.