by John Walters
Tweet Me Right
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announces sweeping gun law changes:
“Today I am announcing that New Zealand will ban all military-style semiautomatic weapons. We will also ban all assault rifles. We will also ban all high-capacity magazines.” https://t.co/zV36BjCKQ1 pic.twitter.com/he0QS3PpAy
— ABC News (@ABC) March 21, 2019
NZL > NRA. It’s amazing what can be accomplished when you get money out of politics.
Starting Five
Luke Maye could finish his North Carolina career with more national championships than Michael Jordan
Tourney Time
This is the first day of the sports year. The Super Bowl is the last day of the sports year. The six weeks or so in between are a void of frigid despair that only exist to help us better appreciate the other 10-plus months.
It’s also the first full day of spring. You made it again, America. Damn proud of you.
Your top seeds: Duke, Gonzaga, Virginia, North Carolina
Our Final Four: Duke, Michigan, Tennessee, North Carolina
Best first-round matchup: Marquette and Markus Howard versus Murray State and Jam O’Rant (or, if you prefer, Ja Morant). These are the top two scorers in the entire tournament facing off in Round 1, today at 4:30 EDT.
As we reach the Final 64 of NCAA Tournament tonight and you finish off your brackets, remember that each time Clemson has won football Nat Championship, North Carolina has won basketball title the following spring.
— Tim Bourret (@TimBourret) March 20, 2019
Sexy Sleepers (teams that could advance to second weekend)
East: Belmont (11), Yale (14)
West: Murray State (13), Buffalo (6)
South: Oregon (12), UC-Irvine (13)
Midwest: Wofford (7), New Mexico State (12)
2. For Pete’s Sake
Really was impressed by South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, 37, in this interview on Morning Joe yesterday. Intelligent. Honest. Fair. Thoughtful. Insightful. Unsullied.
Mayor Pete: “The most important job of an elected leader is to call people to their highest values and to bring them together.”
Honestly, it really feels as if he watched every episode of The West Wing twice and in between watched every Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood that aired. Smart, smart dude and not about to be tripped up by any gotcha questions. There’s a sense, unlike what we’ve been dealing with for two years, that he actually does know what he’s talking about (as opposed to just continually declaring, emptily, “I know what I’m talking about!”).
He’s going to be the smartest guy in the room (he speaks about 4 or 5 languages, at least) in any room he walks into (we suspect he’s heard of Aleppo) and it’s going to be a matter of people getting past his youth or his open sexuality (he’s married) or the fact that he’s not going to flop in the mud with the incumbent.
Should be verrrry interesting to see where this campaign heads…
3. There’s A New Stick In Town
Don’t misunderestimate (I know) the symbolic significance of Tampa Bay’s 5-4 overtime win at Washington last night. Yes, we’re talking about the NHL. Hockey. Yes. Here, in this blog.
The Lightning defeated the Stanley Cup champs, the Capitals, in overtime and were led once again by Nikita Kucherov, who had two goals. The Bolts have by far the top record in the NHL (the victory gives them 118 points; the next highest total is Boston’s and Calgary’s 97) and Kucherov is the favorite to win the Hart Trophy as the league MVP.
The 25 year-old Russian is the NHL’s leader in points (goals + assists) with 119 and while his compatriot, the Caps’ Alex Ovechkin, still leads the NHL in goals scored (48), he’s now 33 with a streak of white in that feral mane. Kucherov isn’t physically imposing (5’11”, 178) the way Ovi is, but he’s been the league’s top skater this season.
4. Fake Moos*
*The judges will also accept “MooToo Movement” and “We’re With Leather”
A couple of days ago, noob congressman Devin Nunes (R-Cal) brought a $250 million lawsuit against Twitter, specifically a pair of parody accounts (@DevinCow, @DevinNunesMom) that openly mocked him. Seems like the kind of thing senior legislative leadership should be devoting energy and resources to doing, no?
Nunez always has the look of “the presentation didn’t go well, did it?”
Anyway, at the time Nunes brought the suit, @DevinCow had a little more than 3,000 followers. This morning it has more than 500,000 followers, or more than 25% more than Nunes himself has on Twitter. That’s what’s known as a self-own (and not a cellphone).
Our mom and dad (and yours) always had the best advice on taunting: ignore them and they’ll stop. Too bad Nunes either had bad parents or failed to heed their advice.
5. Fantastic Finland
For yesterday’s World Happiness Day, the U.N. issued its annual World Happiness Report and for the second consecutive year, Finland finished atop the list. A Scandinavian nation that pretty much resembles northern Minnesota, Finland comes by its happiness honestly.
Scandinavia and Viking-related nations scored well overall, as the top five was rounded out by Denmark, Iceland, Norway and the Netherlands. The next five were Switzerland, Sweden, New Zealand, Canada and Austria.
If you’re thinking, They’re all basically the same country, aren’t they? Well, we were thinking that as well.
Music 101
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
Few songs invited more mockery, but the Crash Test Dummies penned a global hit in 1993 with this plodding tune. A No. 1 hit in seven countries, including Australia, Germany and Norway, it also was a top five track in the U.S.A. and UK. Not bad for a folk group from Winnipeg.
Remote Patrol
March Madness
ALL DAMN DAY (beginning at 9:15 a.m. on the Best Coast!)
NOON CBS TRU
1 p.m. TNT
1:30 p.m. TBS
Will Ja rule today?
No bracket challenge this year?
Hey Jacob,
I’ve got a few things going on right now and I wasn’t sure I could get to it each day. We’ll do it again in the future, I hope.
I’ve heard multiple Buttigieg interviews and he is consistently impressive – he knows what he’s talking about and has actually governed. Imagine that. An openly gay prez seems like beyond the reach of this country right now, but Norway would elect him. I could see him in Senate or cabinet – maybe HUD (check out what he did with derelict housing stock in South Bend – demolished or rehabbed 1000 homes in 1000 days).
Andre,
I hoped that if I included items about a progressive candidate, hockey and a place that looks like Minnesota that I might just reel you in.
And for those of you who don’t know Andre, he was the Pete Buttigieg (absent the sexual predilections) of my dorm in college. One of the smartest and most insightful people you’ll ever meet.
“A void of frigid despair”? Oh, you are SOOOO wrong, grasshopper! Just embrace your inner Olympic winter-sports soul, desperately yearning to break free into the sun, however weak that sun may be! Look, I HATE winter! Hate the snow, hate the ice, HATE the cold, hate that everything looks gray or brown, hate worrying about driving on icy/snowy roads (which I now very rarely do), hate worrying about possible damage to my house from the ice/snow. And yet, I LOVE WATCHING WINTER SPORTS ON TV! Love, love, love! 1st, it’s be-yoo-tee-full! 2nd, these athletes are CRAZY speed addicts &/or artistic savants that ply their craft & risk various body parts for US to watch & enjoy from the comfy WARM confines of our snuggly sofas!
MIKAELA SHIFFRIN should be on this week’s cover of Sports Illustrated as the season she just completed last weekend will likely never be accomplished again : All-around World Cup globe winner (her 3rd), Slalom World Cup globe, GS World Cup globe & Super G World Cup globe. She won 17 races & NO ONE in the 53 year history of the World Cup (woman or man) had ever won more than 14. She’s so far won 60 races in her WC career, on the way to 100+ & leaving Stenmark’s supposed “never-to-be-reached-again” record of 86 in the DUST. And oh yeah, she also won 2 World Championship GOLD medals & 1 Bronze. If I hadn’t watched it all unfold on TV myself (often LIVE, thanks Olympic Channel!), I doubt I would have believed it. She is well on her way to becoming the most winningiest (?) skier of all time & in both the technical & speed events. She is the LeBron James of alpine skiing & she’s a g’damn AMERICAN & ESPN barely mentions her freakin name! Hell, they have to talk more football in FEBRUARY, god forbid we don’t hear some RUMOR that player X just MAY go to team Y the following month. ^#@^!(&*!
And THIS year, I’ve also gotten into Cross Country skiing, which I have never actually done in my life. I watched almost every XC skiing race on the OC, spurred by our own Jessie Diggins & Norwegian cutie Klaebo (think young Matt Damon). I don’t know if this is true, but in my opinion, elite XC skiers MUST be the most aerobically superior in all of sport. And unlike long-distance runners, they are not emaciated with pipe-cleaner arms, nope, they have muscular shoulders AND arms because they use them quite a lot.
There’s a hell of a lot more sport than the same old “Big 3”, ALL YEAR ROUND, just LOOK!
I am a huge fan of Mayor Pete (and I hope, not just because I’m from the South Bend area, though that helps). My favorite thing about him is that in this political era of trying to take the other side down, he focuses far more on how to make things better than how to make the other guys look bad. It’s a very admirable quality, and I hope he can retain it in this climate. He’s more progressive than I am, but I’d happily vote for him.