Hey Everyone:
Now that I post this on Facebook, I have to remember that people all over the country, and even a few folks in Europe potentially read this, so I have to keep that in mind when I refer to stuff like the weather. But this week, that's out the window, because I think all of us had to deal with cold weather and or lots of snow.
Tuesday morning as I was driving into work, the announcer was playing a game. He was naming two cities and trying to guess what city was colder that morning.
1) Birmingham, Alabama vs Bangor, Maine
2) Houston, Texas vs Boston, Massachusetts
3) Memphis, Tennessee vs Anchorage, Alaska
4) Little Rock, Arkansas vs Chicago, Illinois
OK, so it was a balmy 27 in Bangor on Tuesday morning, while Birmingham checked in at a chilly 18.
Boston was above the freezing mark Tuesday, checking in at 34. Houston deep in the heart of Texas, was at a frigid 16.
The frozen tundra of Anchorage, was at 19, which felt like Miami compared to Memphis, which barely registered on the thermometer at 1.
Little Rock was not much warmer than Memphis at 3, which was 6 degrees colder than Chicago.
The weather in this country this week was insane. And unfortunately, for some states who really weren't prepared for cold weather, deadly.
The people of Texas have suffered a great deal. Millions of Texans lost power and had no access to clean water for most of last week. Houston, Austin, and San Antonio were hit particularly hard.
Part of the issue in Texas is that they are the only state in the contiguous 48 that has it's own power grid. While that helps Texans in terms of keeping energy prices low, it becomes problematic when other states can't help by sending power through their grids.
The pictures that were coming out of Texas were heartbreaking. Hospitals unable to treat patients because of no power or water. There were horrible stories of people dying in their homes due to hypothermia. One of my co-workers at Mercy summed it all up perfectly, "This was a week that we put a $3 billion camera on Mars at the same time people in Texas were melting snow for drinking water." If that don't sum up 2021 so far, I don't know what does. (We'll have more on the Mars camera later)
I heard some people saying that Texas didn't exactly rush to help us out after Super Storm Sandy. Well that wasn't the people of Texas, that was their scumbag politicians. And there is no bigger scumbag than their junior senator Ted Cruz.
(F)Lying Ted was caught on camera boarding a flight to Cancun while his constituents were freezing and gathering snow for drinking water. Kind of reminded me of the scene in Spaceballs where Mel Brooks' character President Skroob tells Rick Moranis (Dark Helmet) and George Wynter (Col. Sanderz) "It's a beautiful ship, I think you should go down with it."
Now Cruz tried to backtrack by saying that he was just escorting his daughters down to Cancun, and that he planned to come back that night.
Maury Povich would say....
According to the NY Times (and a h/t to David K Li for posting this) Cruz's wife Heidi sent out a text message to a few of their friends saying that since their house was "FREEZING" that they were heading to the Ritz Carlton in Cancun till Sunday. The Times doesn't say how they obtained the text messages, but say they confirmed the texts with someone who was on the thread, meaning the Cruz's friends are just as unscrupulous as they are.
Now some may say what good could Cruz have done staying in Texas? Some will say the trip was nothing more than "bad optics" Baloney, it was more than that.
One thing he could have done was help raise money for his people. He's damn good at raising money for his various campaigns, so why not?
Instead, it was our own Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who went out and raised well over $1 million for the people of Texas.
You all know I'm not an AOC fan, I'm still licking my wounds over her beating my guy Joe Crowley. And she still hasn't met a microphone, camera or tape recorder she hasn't loved, but she came up aces here and she deserves all the credit in the world for it. One of these days, it might be AOC vs Cancun Cruz for the White House and to me it would be a no-brainer.. (No Pun Intended)
Those of us who lived through Sandy know how bad it can be. Here's hoping and praying Texas gets back on it's feet soon.
And while we are hoping and praying, let's send a few prayers out that we don't get any more snow around these parts either. We here in NY are prepared for snow, and we have done a good job keeping things going as we've been getting hit with storm after storm. But I think we've gotten our fair share here so let this be the end of it.
OUTER SPACE: Mission to Mars
Perseverance, an SUV sized robotic rover that was launched on July 30, 2020, landed on Mars Thursday afternoon. NASA believes that depending on what kind of pictures Perseverance sends back, as well as what kind of samples it comes back to earth with, we can get a good idea if we can eventually send human explorers to the Red Planet.
I often bemoan out lack of progress in terms of space exploration. It's been 51.5 years since we first put a man on the moon, I'm sure those who were alive in 1969 would have thought we'd be a lot closer to putting someone on Mars than we are now.
So far the mission has gone exceedingly well. NASA officials were calling the rover's decent and landing "7 minutes of terror" I bet. I can't imagine the feeling of watching $3 billion crash and burn.
I really hope Perseverance finds what these scientists are looking for and that we can make some progress on this front. Like I've said before, success in space might be the last thing that unites us as Americans.
Now I know that I mentioned the rover in relation to what is going on in Texas and let me be clear, making sure Americans have access to electricity and water is obviously more important. But I'd like to think we can walk and chew gum at the same time.
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This was always the time of year where Mike Francesa complained "There's nothing going on.." That period between the Super Bowl and March Madness. I enjoy this time of year, because we can focus on other things besides football.
RANGERS- Let me down big time with their no-show playoff loss the night before my birthday. And they've done little to nothing to wash that taste out of my mouth. Their goaltending has gottenbetter of late, but their overall defense has been spotty, their offense has been sputtering, and their power play has been non-existant. Before the pandemic shut down the season, the Rangers were one of the hottest teams in the league, and guys like Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider and Artemi Panarin were playing incredible hockey. Mika has struggled all season, some thinking he still hasn't recovered from COVID, Kreider has been a huge disappointment ever more so since he just signed a huge contract. Panarin has also battled injuries. Would also love to see some more from youngsters Kappo Kaako and Alexis LaFereniere.
ISLANDERS- Made it all the way to the Conference Finals over the summer, but have been inconsistent this season, though getting better as of late. A loss to the Penguins snapped a three game winning streak last Thursday. They have also battled some injuries. As much as it pains me to admit it, they have the right balance of grit and finesse to make a playoff run.
The only Devils games I've seen have been the ones against my Rangers. If they played the Rangers every game, they would be hoisting the Stanley Cup.
Onto the NBA
KNICKS- I really haven't watched the Knicks in a long time, but again, after being without sports for so long last year, I'm giving the NBA another chance. Also, I was excited about their draft pick Obi Toppin. Unfortunately, Toppin started the season on the injured list, and then has played sparingly throughout the season. And because us New York sports fans have such world-renowned patience, there are several people wondering aloud if perhaps the Knicks would have been better off drafting Tyrese Haliburton out of Iowa State.
First of all, you draft a guy named Haliburton, that will remind people of Dick Cheney and we can't have that around here right (That's a joke folks-a lame one-but a joke nonetheless) Secondly, part of the issue with Toppin is that he plays the same position as the Knicks best player, by far, Julius Randle. Randle has been something to watch, he can score from outside as well as drive to the hole. He's had a bunch of triple-doubles, and has been a bona-fide all star for the Knicks this year.
The Knicks other first round pick Immanuel Quickley, has been something else too. He's exciting to watch, but I urge caution on him. He's a bit like a home run hitter in baseball, fun to watch when they are going over the wall, not so mucgh when you are striking out swinging. Quickley likes to bomb away from downtown. When you're on fire, you look like Steph Curry. When you miss, you look like Dell Curry. Steph Curry is considered one of the top 5 players in the game today. His dad, Dell, they called him one-dimensional.
In any event the Knicks have been much improved. Coach tom Thibodeau has done a great job.
NETS- On January 13, the Nets traded 4 players, three number one draft picks and what they call draft swaps to Houston (and Cleveland) in exchange for James Harden.
All I can say is the Nets better win a championship or two in the next couple of years, or this trade will be talked about in sports management college courses for how not to run an NBA team.
And the kicker of this is, this is the second time the Nets traded away a bunch of picks in the hopes of winning the whole enchilada. The first time was the disastrous Paul Pierce-Kevin Garnett trade. I think the Celtics are still using those draft picks. One of the picks the Celtics got was a number one overall because the Nets were so bad a couple of seasons after. I've seen my teams make some bad deals, but that has to be one of the worst of all time.
Who knows, maybe Harden, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving will turn out to be what LeBron, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh were for the Heat back in the early 2010's. That's the only way this trade works out for Brooklyn.
One more hockey note: because of the pandemic, the NHL cancelled its annual New Year’s Day outdoor game which was set for Target Field in Minneapolis. Instead they scheduled two games to be played at Lake Tahoe.
They started the first game at 12 noon PST, between Vegas and Colorado, and while the temperature was cold enough, the strong sun both mushed up the ice, and made it hard for the players to see. So they postponed the rest of the game till 9PM PST, (Midnight here in NY). The Avs won and the game ended at almost 2 AM EST.
The Flyers and Bruins played Sunday night. Next time they play in that part of Nevada, they should play on the Ponderosa. Especially if they’re showing the game on NBC. I guarantee they won’t have any issues with the ice.
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Kim Kardashian is back on the market for those of your who might be interested. I really thought they were in for the long haul.
All right that’s all we have folks.
Stay Safe, Wear a Mask
and Have a Great Week
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