Galley Friend C.S. sends in this John Hollinger piece on the demise of the Lakers: “After that first title, the Lakers put less effort into the regular season every year. It was almost as if they were taunting the poor Timberwolves and Kings of the world–Go ahead, get a better record than us if it makes you feel better. We can be the No. 8 seed and still beat you when it matters.”

Hollinger thinks the NBA is worse without the Laker dynasty. I say, good riddance.

UPDATE: ESPN reports that Shaq has taken a shot at Kobe on his new album. Shaq raps: “Even with wings you never as fly as me . . . you remind me of Kobe Bryant trying to be as high as me . . . but you can’t . . . even if you get me traded . . . wherever I’m at, I’m Puffy; you Mase and you’re still hated.”

The Kerry campaign finally gets it: “‘You cannot ignore the 800-pound gorilla sitting in the middle of the room–we are involved in a quagmire in Iraq,’ said Joe Lockhart, senior adviser to Kerry.” Really? You don’t say.

Kerry missed a golden opportunity this spring and summer. After wrapping up the Democratic nomination, he could have run to the right of Bush on Iraq and the war on terror, putting the president in a difficult position. Instead, he fiddled away his time and tried, desperately, to ignore the “800-pound gorilla.” There are only two reasons for Kerry not to have out-flanked Bush on the war when he had the chance: (1) He was worried about the Deaniac base leaving him; or (2) He really does have some immutable principles, and a disbelief in American exceptionalism is one of them.

Reports like this are why George W. Bush should be making a serious effort to bring Russia into the fold: “Col. Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the armed forces chief of staff, asserted the right to launch preemptive attacks on what he termed ‘terrorist bases’ outside Russia. ‘We will take steps to eliminate terrorist bases in any region of the world,’ he told journalists.”

George Will, devastating. And if you read carefully, not just to Kerry.

The Philadelphia Inquirer‘s Bill Lyon is the finest sports columnist working today (apologies to Tom Boswell), and unless you’re from Philly, you’ve probably never heard of him. His end-of-summer wrap-up is a good introduction for the uninitiated.

Evan Coyne Maloney, of Brain Terminal fame, has just put out a feature-length documentary on political bias at universities. It’s called Brainwashing 101 and it’s as funny and incisive as his shorts are, but much, much more devastating. For instance, one radical Bucknell economics professor worries that the schools board of trustees is turning fascist: “The chairman of our board of trustees right now . . . has, for example, said at times that we need to make sure that Bucknell has a sufficiently diverse curriculum, and has proposed maybe that we need an American studies major–implicitly meaning ‘American studies’ should be about celebrating America.”

It’s good stuff. Go take a gander and think about picking up the DVD. Maloney is going places, fast. He’s got the on-screen dexterity of a Michael Moore, only with integrity.

The New York Times David Sanger filed this afternoon’s pool report from Florida, another great bit of writing:

We proceeded to Fort Pierce, about 10 minutes away, to Lawnwood Recreation Area, dominated by a stadium used for local games. The POTUS’s motorcade pulled in to an area outside the municipal stadium, where a Dunkin Donuts truck, a truck providing iced lattes (help is on the way), and trucks full of bottled water and other supplies were lined up. “Convoy of Hope,” a nonprofit described to us as based in Missouri — check that before you print it — was running a drive-thru aid operation, and cars were lined up outside the stadium to pick up emergency supplies.

By the time your pool caught up with POTUS, the Bush Brothers — Jeb in a khaki shirt, his brother in a light blue checked shirt — were loading water and bags of ice into cars, leaning into the passenger seats to shake hands. Most of the

conversation was out of the earshot of your poolers. But the lineup of cars looked a little like a Saturday afternoon line at Safeway to pickup groceries, with the governor of Florida and the POTUS as the bag-loaders — only with more

smiles. As a photo-op it was perfect — the president was signing $2 billion of aid in the morning, then delivering the goods by lunchtime. You’d never know an election was eight weeks away.

“God bless,” we overheard him say to Vernon and Joyzell Friason, who drove away before we could get any details about their situation. A few cars down was a fellow in dreadlocks — we never got his name in the crush — drove up in his battered, mud-covered green Lincoln, the trunk open to receive goods. The President leaned in, shook his hand, dropped some ice in, and said to his brother: “Fine looking car. I used to have one just like it.”

The next driver had a new pickup with a nice liner in the bed — the president dropped 32 half-liter bottles of water into the back. “Thanks for coming by,” he said. At some moments, the governor was loading trunks while the President was tossing diapers and ice into the back seats of cars.

Their career as baggers finished, the two brothers went back to their day jobs. . . .

Not to knock Sanger or anything, but if you read him daily in the Times, would you ever have guessed he could be so light on his feet?

Blogger’s back up now. That only took all day.