Decide for yourself if the draft was fixed. The actual tape of the 1985 NBA Draft lottery is online — this is the lottery that supposedly the NY Knicks envelope was frozen beforehand, so that when Commissioner David Stern put his name in the envelope, he knew which one to pick first, that being the Knicks so they could draft Patrick Ewing.

Watch Stern as he places his hand in the bowl, it does look like he moves it around to search for a specific envelope.

Per Darren Rovell on ESPN.com:

But conspiracy also surrounds the NBA draft. As the theory goes — 16 years after the moon landing — NBA commissioner David Stern gave the league’s largest market the No. 1 pick in the 1985 draft by freezing New York Knicks’ envelope and thus easily making sure not to pick the six “warmer” teams.

The suicide bombing in the cafeteria of the security-heavy International Zone (note how the NYT is the only major newspaper that refers to the so-called ‘Green Zone‘ by its official name) has shifted Iraqi and American perceptions of the secured area. And the news from the day is deep and varied.

But Washington Post reporter Sudarsan Raghavan was several tables away from the explosion and filed an incredible first-person account of the bombing.

(Raghavan also filed an audio interview with the Washington Post’s radio station in D.C., and is conducting a live chat later today.)

Photo credit: AP.

His report even includes this transcript of his tape recorder, that continued running after the bombing went off.

“Khalid! Pick him up!”


“Is there a doctor at the training room?”


“Yes, there is one.”


“It’s all a curse on us, Ayad. It’s because of the stealing, the corruption.”


“Why, God, why?”


“Ah ahhhahhhh,” someone screamed in pain.

No matter how you perceived the success (or lack thereof) in the military’s embedded reporters during the actual invasion of Iraq, the best on-the-ground and real-life reporting from the region has come from the reporters who were not embedded with military units.

Raghavan is a good example, as was (then-)Marketplace’s Adam Davidson (now of NPR), but the reporting that gives what seems like the closest narrative of what life might be like in Iraq still belongs to Washington Post reporter Anthony Shadid. His book, Night Draws Near, is still some of the most moving writing from the last 5 years.

Per the AP:

Human error is to blame for the sinking of a cruise ship off the popular Greek resort island of Santorini, the Cyprus-based company that operates the ship said Wednesday, confirming government suspicions.

The Sea Diamond sank after slamming into well-marked rocks last Thursday. Nearly 1,600 people, including hundreds of American tourists, were evacuated from the ship, but two French tourists are missing and feared dead, officials said.

It’s incredible to think that the scenic cliffs and coastline I walked along at the end of one week,witnessed the sinking of a huge cruise ship the following week.

Seriously, the ships you see in the photo I took here are exactly where the ship sank less than a week later.

The jaded reporter in me wishes I had remained there to document the event, and also wonders whether the disaster will have any affect on Santorini’s summer tourist season.

Visiting Greece is everything you’ve heard, and more. Especially the oodles of stray, (possibly-)rabid dogs. Seriously, there are lots of them.

I saw one woman petting one at the Acropolis. And no, I don’t mean on the hike to the top.

I mean, standing in front of the Parthenon and listening to a tour guide talk, a middle-aged woman wearing an American flag-emblazoned shirt was petting a dirty, lost dog of undetermined breed.

And Athens wasn’t especially clean either. Although I wouldn’t really complain about that. In fact, the grime and hardscrabble side of the city made me miss Berlin. Especially all the tagging and graffiti, like this shot I took of a tagged wall that overlooked what I remember was called “Tritons’ Square”, or something similar.