Alright, let's get this going.

"Heartbreak" takes us into the official coverage.  I'm sure the Pistons know how a heart breaks.  Ha.

They have some female chorus doing the National Anthem tonight.  Best rendition of the series.  Some of them look pretty good too.

Alright folks, this is it.  The end.  The finale.  Turn out the lights, the party's over.

I predicted the Spurs would win in 6, and damn if they aren't going to do it tonight.  They have the momentum after snatching a victory away from Detroit in Game 5, and now they come home to dominate once more.

I expect Tim Duncan to redeem himself in a dominant fashion in this game.  He will push the envelope in this game, and will close with an exclamation mark.  Ginobili had a decent Game 5, and he should have another one.  However Parker had disappeared after scoring 14 points in the first half on Sunday night.  What happened to him?  And it was obvious that he had no clue on how to stop Chauncey Billups, as he scored a series-high 34 points.

Meanwhile, Detroit's energy was probably sapped due to Robert Horry's performance.  Billups looked like a basset hound at the press conference after the game.  I don't blame him, because as I said in Game 1, he can't do everything.  Someone's got to help.  Ben Wallace is playing his ass off, but nobody else is willing to step up with him.  And Rasheed Wallace hasn't had a good game yet in this series.

Detroit will also have to bring back that defense that placed a hurting on Ginobili and kept Parker from getting an easy shot.  They will also have to stop biting on the slash, because San Antonio is only getting it to the open man behind the arc for the three.  Bowen and Horry aren't missing those shots like they did the earlier games in Detroit.  That means someone will have to step up and guard the lane 1-on-1, and Big Ben will probably camp out in the paint on the defensive end the whole night.

Well, that's what I think, anyway.  See you tonight.

The Senate had to resort to a cloture vote in order to end debate on the Bolton nomination, and it failed by a vote of 54-38.  It wasn't surprising, since Sen. Barbara Boxer had announced she was going to block his nomination late last month, so there shouldn't have been a doubt in anyone's mind that the Democrats were going to anything they could to keep Bolton from getting confirmed.

Once again, the obstructionists continue to hold up progress on anything the Republicans, and thus most Americans, support.  The documents they've demanded is a weak excuse for filibustering the nomination.  The truth is, the Democrats still can't believe the voters have not only voted to give the Republicans majority support in the Senate but in the House as well.  You would have thought they would have learned a lesson after the whippings they receieved in 2000, 2002, and 2004, but they seem content in their contrarian methods anyway. 

It also exposes the internationalist principles rooted within the Democratic Party.  Just as they were willing to oppose the War in Iraq for the fact that the snoots at the U.N. Headquarters opposed it, they know John Bolton represents a dire threat against the eurocentric status quo inside of the U.N. and thus they must oppose him.  After the Oil For Food and Congo sex scandals, the Democrats are still not willing to stand up, hold the United Nations accountable, and admit there is systematic problems inside the international body.  They are more than willing to allow the articles to be buried inside of newspapers and make hollow promises to call for change.  Bush nor Bolton are willing to do that, and thus in the eyes of the internationalists, Bolton must be stopped.

Some have wondered why President Bush and the Republicans are making all of this fuss over John Bolton, as it's relatively easy for Bush to nominate someone else.  My question is why shouldn't Bolton receive an up or down vote?  The Democrats have no standing to dictate who Bush nominates and who he doesn't.  Every senator has one vote, but the Democrats want to make their minority votes count more than the majority.  If the Democrats insist on acting like spoiled children who are mad that they can't get their way, then Bush should give Bolton a recess appointment, and continue to do so until the Democrats decide they're ready to act like adults again.

When I wrote about Jesse Helms last week, I described him as one of the last politicians to apologize for his racist actions before and after the Civil Rights Movement.

Well I was wrong, as there is another senator who is in denial over his past bigoted ways.  Robert Byrd is writing his memoirs, called "Robert C. Byrd: Child of the Appalachian Coalfields", in which he discusses his involvement in the Ku Klux Klan:

The 770-page book is the latest in a long series of attempts by the 87-year-old Democratic patriarch to try to explain an event early in his life that threatens to define him nearly as much as his achievements in the Senate. In it, Byrd says he viewed the Klan as a useful platform from which to launch his political career. He described it essentially as a fraternal group of elites -- doctors, lawyers, clergy, judges and other "upstanding people" who at no time engaged in or preached violence against blacks, Jews or Catholics, who historically were targets of the Klan.

Thus, Byrd tries to make it seem as if it was just a bunch of successful good ole boys who had a fetish for white sheets and hoods.  It's amazing that even today, with him being a bastion of American leftism, that he cannot be honest about what the Klan was and his activities in it.  To explain it as if it were a local chapter of the chamber of commerce serves as a slap in the face to the many people and families the Klan targeted and terrorized.

While Byrd asked for forgiveness for his involvement in the Klan, his candycoating of his time in it and the people who were with him negates that apology.  What he truly is sorry for is that it became public.  After all, it was the Klan who encouraged him to get involved with politics, and he wrote a letter urging the growth of the Klan the very same year he won his first election as a state representative in 1946. 

Indeed, he has characterized the Klan identity as an "albatross" around his neck, as if it only a mere burden to his political career instead of a legitimate concern to America.  But more than likely, that isn't the case, at least in the early part of it:

Stunned Democratic state party officials, including then-Gov. Okey L. Patteson, urged him to drop out of the race [after the 1946 letter was made public]. Byrd survived the ensuing political firestorm, won the general election and went on to serve six years in the House before winning his Senate seat in 1958. During his Senate campaign, he told a newspaper reporter that he personally felt the Klan had been incorrectly blamed for many acts committed by others.

Is it possible that he gained popularity because of his connections to the Klan?  While I'm not inferring West Virginia was completely racist, it's not hard to believe that 1950's West Virginia would be indifferent to a senator being a former Klansman.  I'm sure people in that area knew several prominent figures - as Byrd said himself - who were involved in the Klan.  Besides, it wasn't like Byrd did anything during the 50's and 60's to prove anyone wrong.

But don't hold your breath for any so-called black leaders or civil rights leaders to call Byrd out for his KKK fence-straddling.  Since he was against the War on Iraq, he's one of them.  Besides, he still wields so much influence in Congress that no politician would dare criticize him.  Maybe if he would have written his memoirs during the impeachment, where he was very critical of Clinton's deeds and the attitude of the Democrats during that time, they would have been more vocal.  And as you probably heard earlier this week, Ralph Nader gets that treatment as well.

---

UPDATE:  To my knowledge, Byrd never apologized or addressed his obstruction of civil rights legislation.  Does he plan to address that in his book?

Well, so far Bill Walton has sounded like an idiot ("Tim Duncan is a shell of his former self), "Heartbreak" has played 10 times already, and Stuart Scott has looked like a fool trying to talk slang ("The Pistons have sipped LB's Kool-Aid").

Just some quick words.  First, San Antonio needs to recapture that heart and fearlessness that they played with in Game 1&2.  They have no choice but to push the envelope, as a third straight loss would almost seal the deal to them losing the NBA Championship.

I'd just like to remind everyone that I am liveblogging the entire NBA Finals.  Sunday's coverage starts at 9:00.  Tuesday's coverage starts at 9:00 as well.

Thus, if you can't get to a television, or want to read some commentary while you watch it, stop on in.

Previous NBA Finals Coverage (I have liveblogged all of the series except Game 2):

You know, everytime I get slightly worried about the Republicans screwing up something that could be used against them in a future election, the Democrats always remind me that they'll never get it.  Whether it's news of corruption, another Hillary campaign finance violation, or another idiotic comment from Howard Dean, the chances of the Democrats staying the minority for quite a long time are virtually guaranteed.

The latest blunder, as I'm sure you've heard by now if you've been paying attention to the news or the blogosphere, is Illinois Senator Dick Durbin's idiotic statement likening U.S. interrogation tactics to the Nazis and the Soviets.  Here's his statement after reading an example of the conditions in Guantanamo Bay:

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

It he would have described murders, mutilation, gassings, or something of that sort, I think most people would have understood the reference.  However, he talked about detainees who were left in interrogation rooms on the floor while the air conditioners were either on full blast or were cut off altogether, and loud music was played to keep them awake.  None of that comes CLOSE to the horrors described by the survivors or witnesses of concentration camps or gulags, especially when these regimes are some of the biggest mass murderers in history.

Nevertheless, I was content to let this comment slide.  After all, Ted Kennedy made a similar idiotic comment after the Abu Gharib photos became public, and I was pretty sure that condemnation would come and Democrats would sort of back away from Durbin a bit.  However, none have, and the left-wing bloggers in the blogosphere have also come to the defense of Durbin.

If left-wing bloggers want to know why they don't have more influence in the media (especially after how they spurned their cries for more coverage of the Downing Street Memo) then this might help:

And let's not forget, "torture" was used as a rationale for this war -- as in, we'll invade and end the torture.

Of course, none of that has happened. The torture that was so bad under Saddam, is equally bad under U.S. command. And Dick Durbin had the balls to say it so on the Senate floor.

Even if we are to take Kos's explanation for face value - he says it wasn't saying the amount of torture was equally bad, only the fact that torture is being used - it's statements like these that show the fallacy of leftist thinking.  You can't simply make an equation by looking at the surface of the two things you are comparing.  There are other underlying factors and objectives behind these activities that need to be discussed first. 

To claim interrogation tactics that could possibly divulge information which would save the lives of our soldiers in their struggle to secure Iraq is as equally bad as the countless murders Saddam and the Bathist regime committed makes no sense whatsoever.  Saddam tortured and killed political opponents, and jailed any and everyone that provided the least bit of resistance to his policies or to his henchmen.  For the most part, most of these people were sentenced to death and torture because Saddam could do it and nobody could stop them. 

In these prisons there is a chain of command, and detainees are reviewed and over 200 of them have been released and sent back to their respective countries.  Over 130 have been punished for treatment that was against military regulations.  I wonder how many times the Bathist government punished Republican Guard officers for mistreating prisoners?

Luckily, media outlets are not falling for this viewpoint, and are criticizing Durban.  In fact, the Boston Herald called for Durban's resignation.  Hopefully others will see Durban's comments for what they really are and call for him to either apologize fully (and not this joke of an apology either) or resign.

Or at least that's what he said.

From the NY Daily News:

Speaking Wednesday night at a Washington fund-raiser to retire the debt from his 2004 presidential campaign, Nader complained that Democratic Party powerbrokers had kept him off the ballot in such Southern states as Georgia and Virginia - which reminded him of the oppressive Jim Crow laws that denied African-Americans equal rights.

"I felt like a [n-word]," remarked the 70-year-old white multimillionaire graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School.

Actually Nader is Lebanese, but we won't go into specifics.  And from what I heard, it isn't the first time he's used that word either.

At least Al Sharpton was honest when commenting on this:

"If Ed Koch had said what Ralph Nader said, we'd be marching," Sharpton noted. "This [scolding] doesn't rise to the level of a march. It rises to the level of a wrist slap."

But why is that the case?  It's because Sharpton likes Nader and hates Ed Koch, even though neither of them have been accused of being racist.  As long as you're rubbing elbows with Sharpton or someone on the left, you're allowed a few blunders here and there.

From the AP:

PHILADELPHIA - Rapper 50 Cent is pulling out of next month's Live 8 concert because of a scheduling conflict with his new movie.

The shooting schedule for "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" — a film based on the life of the artist formerly known as Curtis Jackson — recently changed and will now conflict with the July 2 show on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, publicist Yvette Gail said.

Now I'm not that hyped about Live 8.  I think it means well, but ultimately won't do anything to end poverty in Africa.  But this is a charity event, and Curtis is being very selfish for passing up the concert to shoot a movie, and a movie on HIS life, no less.  You mean he couldn't have rescheduled it for a couple of days later? 

The concert is in Philadelphia, and the shooting is in Toronto, which isn't no more than a seven hour drive (and you know he wouldn't be driving anyway).  Even if he didn't want to fly back, he could have drove.  To pull out like that is messed up.

And in an ironic twist, I happened to click on a picture on the same news article link (Yahoo) which happened to be from E! Online, and it had this caption:

50 Cent is taking aim at some DVD producers for allegedly failing to keep a promise not to cash in on the rapper's name.

Yeah.  Obviously 50 knows something about breaking promises.