My Jewish Christmas has me thinking NBA lottery gifts.  Is it too soon to think about the lottery? That question is rhetorical.  Thanks to the GSoM scouting project, much of that thinking will be refined to a tasty pulpy paste that Nellie should happily gobble or drink…if he’s heard of the internet.

Just for fun, I’ll add my rusty two cents about four months too early.  The Warriors are this year’s Grizzlies: They have redundancies of redundancies, which could force a dumb decision.  Who among us watched the Grizz glumly pick Thabeet and thought it would work out well? No one, except the rare breed of character who would actually admit to having thought anything other than ‘STIFF’ on draft day.  I respect that person’s honesty, and perhaps Thabeet will hit a championship-winning half court shot before it’s all said and done.  But in the pre-Thabeet half court shot era, the pick looks awful–especially since Conley’s looking like a guy who merely rode Greg Oden’s coattails (which will eventually lead to Greg Oden fracturing both coattails).  I guess my point is that W’s management shouldn’t worry about redundancy because we barley know who’s good on this youthful, crazy team.

If the Warriors Secaucus their way into the top 3, almost any pick should force a trade.  I love Derrick Favors as Amare 2.0, but what happens if we actually have the luck to get him? Biedrins trade? We give up on Randolph?  Another Monta vs. Curry situation among bigs? Same problems arise with the glorious John Wall.  This isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just an interesting place to be after so much pre-season playoffs hyping. Winning the lottery will set off a Tim Kawakami speculation bomb. Just prepare for it, no biggie.

Given our lotto luck, I wouldn’t be surprised if we slip past top 3 pay dirt.  If that happens, remember Evan Turner. I may be getting ahead of myself, but his talent will most likely exceed his draft selection number.  Hell, I’ll prematurely conjecture my mental mind into thinking we’ll get him.  So why does Turner Talent>Turner Selection?  He fractured two back vertebrae and is out two months.  This is a concern, but it is also a chance to get a DuJuan Blair bargain.

I heard an interview with Daryl Morey once, where he said that the Rockets consistently take on injury risk as a means of beating the basketball market (paraphrasing).  Perhaps Mr. Quantum physics was merely playing a Jedi Mind trick so he could laugh when Donnie Walsh signed Jonathan Bender, but Morey’s words seemed pregnant with the veracity of a thousand George Washingtons.

In Morey I trust.  And in Evan Turner’s awsome rebounding, passing, and driving ability I sort of trust.  He’s six-foot-seven and ath-a-letic, as the announcers say. Check out this Turner youtube mix set to Eminem’s ‘Till I Collapse’ and try to keep from getting pumped (He looks like Tyreke Evans on some of the drives!).  Behold, his mighty rebounding and assist numbers (two huge Warriors concerns). With a little luck, we can add him and at least compensate for our suckitude with a historically youthful, compelling cast. Call it ’suckcitement.’

• I’ll tell you how this grainy, crappy footage of Oprahpalooza ends. Its ends with her screaming: “And YOU’RE getting healthcare! And YOU’RE getting healthcare! And YOU, YOU ARE GETTING HEALTHCARE!! HOLY FUCKING CRAP, I’M ON THE COVER OF MY OWN MAGAZINE! EVERY ISSUE! AND IT’S NAMED AFTER ME! ME! MEEEE!!!!!.”
• Oh shit, maybe you’re not getting healthcare. O & Obama have both mastered platitudinous charisma, it seems. Their current campaign gambit’s got CNN wondering how many votes a hug is worth. That’s so CNN: Analyzing how an act of human affection may influence the substanceless horserace. I can see a future Anderson Cooper scroll: “His mother’s love: Is it helping or hurting Edwards?”
• Hey, I have hope that Obama can transcend politics like he advertises. I mean, why give Americans a decent healthcare plan when you can gush about hope and stuff?
• Hillary pathetically counters with pimping her daughter. Like the pundit world is gonna give two shits about your non-billionaire daughter. Why did you even bother to have her? Does she have pull in the swing states? Can she rig elections? I mean, really? Your own daughter supports you? Well I guess that’s a bonus since Rudy’s fam doesn’t quite support him. His families we know about anyway.
• As for the Huckabee surge…well that’s attributable to a little known fact: Republican evangelicalcats will not vote for whoever loves God the most. No, they will only vote for the candidate whom God loves the most. And a prez hopeful’s stock rises and falls by the caprice of the Almighty. Right now, God loves Mike Huckabee. And he probably hates the American people. Why else would he power the lovechild of Pat Robertson and Jared from Subway? We obviously angered him by not quarantining AIDS infested illegal immigrant gays.

Hey, what’s up, this is Greenberg, a Jew who feels he’s equipped to explain everything in the world from the Middle East conflict to whether there is life on other planets.

What’s on my mind lately? Well, I’ve been thinking that Jewish stereotypes need some updating. What we have going on today is really complex… See, every Jew has two sides now. We got the straight up Jewish side:

And then we got that Israeli side:

I won’t lie, I’m probably like 80 percent Jewish, 20 percent Israeli. I argue about stupid things, I read Phillip Roth, and I’ve had nothing but shikse girlfriends up until this point.

Yes, Roger Cohen. Bush and Palestinian quasi leader Salam Fayyad should relate over Salam’s University of Texas roots. Solution city is around the coroner! Wait, I’m sorry. I meant “corner.” I think.

Never mind that Annapolis is probably a sham conference—one meant to turn Syria and Iran against each other. Much as I wish the cynical Syrian alliance façade were a crazy conspiracy theory, Bush admin mouthpiece David Brooks said exactly that on Jim Leher’s snooze button. I posted it before, but what the hell. Once more, David. With feeling:

“This is about trying to build a coalition against Iran. If they can turn Syria, make it more anti-Iranian. That could be a big win.”

Ugh. But hey, let’s be optimistic. This conference can only end well, man. All the pundits seem to think Annapolis a good thing. They’re reasonably positing that Bush hasn’t meddled enough in Islamic countries. He’s like Steve Erkel in a room full of porcelain dominos. Let’s turn him loose and see what happens! Perhaps, Bush will get lucky this time because God knows, the man is due. So let us optimistically follow Roger Cohen’s vague outline for peace as best we can.

Step 1: Bond with Salam Fayyad over some kind of Texas thing:

Fayyad: Meester Buush, how I love drive thru liquor stores! And titty bars! We don’t have enough of them een the West Bank, my friend!

Bush: Hehe. Yer my kinda guy, Sal-AM. Maybe this peace thing can work after all…ya amusing brown rascal. You sure you ain’t Mexican?

Step 2: Preach moderation, moderation, moderation:

Bush: To moderation!

Fayyad: Go Longhorns!

Abbas: Down with Hamas! And by that I mean let’s all pretend they don’t run Gaza.

Saudis: Down with Iran! Up with oil prices!

Syrians: Um, how much more of this till we get the Golan Heights back? We’ll say anything. Seriously, we’ll say Hezbollah sold nukes to Iran. Whatever man, we just really really want our strategic military area back.

Step 3: Steer the Palestinians away from victim-tripping.

Bush: I don’t believe in the soft bigotry of not believin’ Ayrabs can’t not adopt our ways and culture and Christian lord. Now, ya’ll aint victims, so stop actin’ like it! Aint that right, Condi?

Rice: Well sir, I would put it a bit differently… But yes, you have a point.

Fayyad: You’re right, grand Western leaders. Victimhood is bad. Like every former World Bank employ, I understand that a nation fails because the people in it are miserable failures. External forces, such as, say, the World Bank—an organization that theoretically should externally improve nations—has no impact.

Step 4: Make Israel concede something like a settlement freeze. This should be very easy.

Olmert: Oof, (crunching food), mmm, oh wow. This spread is AMAZING. Okay, I’ll admit it: I’m drunk. Who wants the Golan Heights? Anybody? What about Jerusalem? Wooo!!!

Step 5: Put pressure on the Israelis to actually stick to what they promise.

Olmert: Ughhhhhhh (rolls out of bed). Oh god, my brain. That Annapolis conference was too wild. It’s like there’s an audit in my head, and everyone’s invited. Wait (looks at a wrinkled, booze-stained generous two state agreement). Oh fuck! Condi, get out of my bed. We got some work to undo!

From Thomas Friedman: “The jihadists know that if they can defeat America — in the heart of their world — it would influence the whole region.”

Hmm, the domino theory again.

But I feel Friedman on this one. We cannot succumb to the jihadist. And the way to beat him is simple: Use all our steadfastness and resolve to militarily turn Iraq into a democratic utopia. If we don’t, the consequences are dire. The terrorists will “set up shop in Iraq”, and get nuclear weapons from Iran. THEY will then drag their nukes across the Mexican border (the sneaky bastards will be wearing sombreros presumably). And THEY will blow up Los Angeles. After which THEY’ll dance on the Arab Street. THEY’ll hit their women with more vigor. And worst of all, THEY’ll laugh.

THEY. Must. Be. Stopped. But how, but how? Well let me tell you a little something about a thing I’d like to call “Modernization.” See, we just have to introduce the Iraqis to our better way of life (this is best done by sending non-Arabic speaking American kids over there to shoot at arbitrary targets), and wham! Wait. That “wham” was actually an IED explosion (looking at watch, pacing). And wham! Democratic sweeping utopian Constitutional Convention amazingness.

A beacon of light shall flood the sun-bleached dunes of MiddleIranabia. They’ll learn how to be just like us. Just like us, I say! With pigtails and popcorn and “Girls Gone Wild” tapes (can you just imagine the freaky porn these people will come up with?!).

Now, some might argue that taking in refugees would be an effective way of spreading modern Western betterness. Those naïve fools would get us all killed. You see, these people, we want to help them. But we don’t necessarily trust them. They could be THEM. There could be a jihadist in THEIR ranks. We can never really know with these savages. Did I say savages? Oh, I meant the slightly misled people whose plight we’ve worried over from the start. After all, we did this for them. Not ourselves.

Unfortunately, many a granola-munching closet homosexual wants to get in the way. NPR McDoonesberry wants to bitch about how this has gone on longer than World War II, about how there seems to be no real plan. Would ya grow up, people?! That attitude is not the answer. It won’t convince us that we’re winning, and it certainly won’t convince THEM that we’re convincing ourselves that we’re winning. Be serious, you crazy Jane Fondas!

But back to the dire consequences. Oh man, they’re truly awful. If Iraq should descend into chaos, it wouldn’t look like every other third world shit farm we ceased caring about in the post Cold War era. No, no, no, it’d be a painful reminder of how “we lost.” Sure, they would have to deal with the death and all. But the malaise America would suffer through. It boggles the mind how bummed out we’d be about this whole defeat thing. Plus we’d be worried since Iraq would become a terrorist beacon. We don’t know much about terrorism, but we do know that an Iraq loss will mean another terrorist attack from THEM.

So that’s where we find ourselves. If we pull out, THEY will attack us. If we stay, they will adopt our ways and spread democracy throughout “the region.” Just remember, it takes awhile. The American Revolution took years, and it aint perfect (we still have travesties like Social Security and Medicare!). Give Bush more money, please.