Sorry about the length between posts, but I don't have the internet on weekends and thursday and friday were a little crazy for me.

Couple of things... Obviously the Pistons have completely destroyed any semblance of Laker invincibility and inevitability with the way they have frustrated the Lakers, especially Kobe Bryant. Bill Plaschke made the point in the LA Times today that the fact that Shaq did not have 50 last night cost the Lakers the game, and the person most responsible for that was Bryant. Credit Larry Brown for single covering Shaq, he is dominant, and you can't help that. But Shaq is a very good passer from the post, and if he's facing constant double teams, he can find people open very easily. But Shaq becomes more dominant if you think he's going to dominate, and you make special efforts to curtail that dominance, which you can't prevent anyway. What the Pistons have done is make Kobe a volume shooter, forcing him to take as many, or more shots, as he has points. Kobe is selfish and stubborn, and therefore just keeps putting up shots, while Shaq just sits down low, waiting to score. The Pistons offense was something I don't think anyone was prepared for, especially with the scores of the Eastern conference finals. But the East and West play different styles, and so the Pistons offense is far freer facing a Western team than it was facing Eastern ones. The reason the Nets were slaughtered the last two years is that they played Western style basketball, and the Western teams were ready for it.

The Reagan stuff. Ok, I realize every liberal has had their say as to why he is undeserving of the kind of canonization RWR has been receiving lately. I will boil it down to two reasons why I feel he isn't, AIDS and South Africa. Obviously, much ink has been spilled on ho Reagan ignored the AIDS crisis and did not publicly acknowledge it for several years after it was a known illness. In the meantime, thousands died and millions were infected. Reagan prominently supported the white government of South Africa in the 80's when much of the world was condemning apartheid. Reagan advocated tha we lift sanctions, vetoing a Senate bill that would have placed sanctions on the nation. The veto was overturned. Understand it takes 2/3, 67 senators to do this, it never happens, except here.

The dollar issue: Reagan shouldn't be on any currency. I realize that people are pushing for people to put him on the ten, but come on, did he really do more for the nation than Alexander Hamilton did? If you must put him on something, put him on the 2, its rarely used, Jefferson already has the Nickel, and the R's can have their prize and Democrats save face. This does however lead me to one complaint, that Chief Justice John Marshall, the man the made the Supreme Court the powerful entity that it is, is not on any currency. Perhaps the next dollar coin should have Marshall, with the Supreme court of the reverse side. I feel this would pay tribute to a man long ignored for his contributions to American government.