Pacers, Ron Artest and Hurricanes

As the summer league season get going there is actually an all-star playing in one of the leagues. The infamous Ron Artest is playing competitive basketball for the first time since last November when he was the main figure in the melee at Auburn Hills. Now I don't believe he should have been suspended for the season. A beer got thrown on him while trying to avoid a fight (something people seem to forget) and he said he felt threatened so he ran into the crowd. I will be the first to admit that going into the crowd is the worst move possible, but there is something people seem neglect, the fact that Detroit fans many times cross the line. Supposedly they have been on Artest all game, but not like regular fans. They were yelling racial insults and such during the game and the beer was the final straw for Artest. Also there was this big afro hack who started the whole thing in the first place. Ben Wallace started the scuffle in the first place and he got 5 games while the Pacers got over 100 games combined. But the biggest culprit, the people who escalated everything to the point where players were in serious danger, the fans. How were the fans, Detroit, and the Pistons punished for having this happen in their arena? They weren't at all. Artest has taken responsibilities for his actions, but have the fans or the Pistons, nope. But this Pacers team without one of their all-stars, and with their best player not at 100% almost beat the Pistons in the semi-finals (thanks to former Pistons coach Rick Carlisle). The Pistons are also have internal problems and the Pacers got a steal with Granger. The Pacers have great management and coaching proving that when they were at their lowest (one game suiting up 6 players) and continued to compete. People are already predicting Heat-Pistons again, but I expect the Pacers to have something to say about that.

But I am glad Artest is back on the floor. He plays with so much passion, plays on both ends (he is a shut down defender who can average 20 over a season) and has fantastic work ethic. Most players of his status would not even think about playing in a summer league with rookies and journey men but he wants to get back to where he was last year.

We are again off to a record setting hurricane season and as a northeasterner I can be amazed and not scared at the rate hurricanes and hitting North America, but with all the technologies we have isn't there any way we can stop them or be better prepared for them. Each hurricane is costing us billions of dollars and we just shrug our shoulders and start cleaning the damage up.

I was talking the other day and realized how scary this government can be. We already having a good idea that they are holding back the development of a vehicle that does not use gasoline of any kind because we do not want to piss off the oil companies because they contribute so much, but what if they are doing that for other things to. They may already have a cure for AIDS, but what if the pharmaceutical companies (who also contribute a ton of money) would not allow a cure or vaccine to come out because they make so much on the AIDS drugs. They already did that with generic drugs and drugs from Canada, is it so far fetched that they might prevent a drug like this from reaching the people. I mean they clearly do not care about the people, they only care about getting what they want done and trying to beat the other party. They don't care about the single mom who can't get to work because she can't afford gas or the sick man who cannot afford the medication he needs. As long as the companies are contributing money Congress will work for them instead of us.